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and are open to the same rebuke. But I am here this evening, 
not as a man of science, but as a clergyman, and I must 
speak, therefore, from a clerical point of view. I do it the 
more, because personally I entertain no fear of science, nor 
have I the least wish to draw too strong and broad a line 
between science and religion. It is not science I fear, but 
the mistakes current under the name of science. I am told 
that science has disproved the Bible. I reply with a simple 
denial that I see no contradiction between the conclusions of 
science and the authority of the Word of God. I am told 
that 1 am not competent to judge, because I am not a man of 
science. I maintain that I am competent, and that com- 
petence I wish to defend this evening. For this purpose I 
wish to review the processes of scientific investigation, mark 
out the point at which the man of science and the theologian 
begin to part from each other, and assert the right of the 
theologian to interfere at this point of the process and to 
maintain an opinion of his own. In other words, I wish to 
mark out the respective provinces of the observer and the 
reasoner in scientific investigation. 
It may be well to observe in passing, that both classes 
employ the same instrument, the reason, and that according 
to the same laws of the mind and the same principles of 
reasoning. The special influences of the Holy Spirit in 
removing obstacles in the way of conviction, in giving vital 
force to truth, and a realization of unseen things, which is 
almost a sight of the invisible, I now leave out of the question. 
I am able to do so, because the work of the Holy Ghost is no 
violent and abrupt disturbance to the order of our nature, 
but is wrought in strict accordance with the principles of its 
constitution. The Creat ordoes not shatter His own work 
when He gives it higher life ; He only keeps the entire machine 
in healthy motion, through its ordinary modes of conviction, 
affection, character, conduct. The theologian exercises the 
same instrument of the intellect in his province of inquiry, as 
the physical philosopher does in his. Faith without grounds 
on which it rested, would not be faith but superstition ; the 
theologian no more ignores reason on his side than the man 
of science is able to do without faith on his. 
Not only so, but there is a very strong resemblance, if not 
an exact identity, to the mental processes employed by the 
two classes, however different may be the materials with 
which they deal. They both use the same instrument of 
induction which has been the great key of all modern dis- 
covery. I do not enter into the nice questions which have 
been raised relative to induction and deduction, but use the 
