11] 
for the purpose of ascertaining, if we can, how far they affect 
the principles of Biblical interpretation. 
3. It appears to me that it is impossible to overrate the 
importance of this inquiry. It is one of the greatest and 
most anxious questions of the day. For so long as Christian 
philosophers are unable to see how holy Scripture may be a 
true revelation of God’s mind to man, and yet be altogether 
independent of the researches of science, it is certain that 
scientific men will have a tendency to regard revelation with 
distaste, and even look upon its authority with suspicion. If 
they find themselves unable to pursue their researches from a 
strictly scientific point of view, without having their opinions 
called in question as infidel, because they seem to be in conflict 
with Scripture, they will necessarily come to the conclusion that 
either one or other of these two bases of belief must be aban- 
doned. It is perfectly clear that they will not abandon the 
first; and therefore nothing will remain for them but to give up 
the second. Thus the means we use to pi’otect the authority 
of Divine revelation may become a latent source of unbelief, 
and spread the very evil we deplore. I am speaking to you 
plainly because the danger is imminent; indeed the mischief is 
already working widely. Nor is it possible for a member of this 
Institute, whose sole object it is to preserve a proper relation- 
ship between science and revelation, to do better service than by 
showing how each of these may be studied, and received inde- 
pendently, without any want of due allegiance to either. 
4. In prosecuting this purpose perhaps I cannot do better than 
state, at the outset, the conviction which I have arrived at after 
long and anxious study ; and which I now desire to put forth 
for discussion, with all the anxiety of one who seeks alone after 
truth. It is this : That while Scripture is indifferent to the 
duty of expressing itself with uniform exactness upon scientific 
questions, it is nevertheless so perfectly accurate in some parti- 
culars which have been only made known by recent scientific 
discoveries, as to justify us in believing that, wherever it fails to 
be properly scientific, it does not result from any inability to be 
so, but simply from the circumstance that its primary and 
fundamental object was of a different nature; the scientific 
propriety of its language having been deliberately set aside, in 
order that its teaching might be subordinated to those moral 
and spiritual purposes which were the great ends for which 
revelation was delivered. 
5. It appears to me that this view of the subject is not only 
capable of proof, but that it is the only view by which we can 
be loyal to our Bibles, and yet loyal to Science also. To esta- 
blish this proposition will be the object of the present paper. 
k 2 
