RECONCILIATION

OF

SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

I.

NECESSARY RELATIONS OF THE RELIGIOUS AND THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES.

THE din of a great controversy sounds in our ears. Men of thought have been summoned to choose their banner, and range themselves upon one side or the other of the line of battle. It is the "conflict" between Religion and Science which has thrown the world into commotion.

It might be expected that I should appear before you in a militant character. I do not. I shall assume the office of a mediator. It may mark a stronger character to love war; but when I see "a house divided against itself," I love peace. I shall be reproached for weakness. We shall hear of somebody "on the fence." Extremists will say I have no opinion, and court the favor of both the combatants. I shall, nevertheless, be brave enough to face such dangers; and I shall deliberately incur the risk of losing the favor of both combatants by refusing to take sides with either. To be positive is not to be strong; to be dogmatic is not to be brave. To be right is to be both strong and brave. I have a fancy there is some merit in keeping cool while others are excited. It is easier to go with the crowd than to resist it. It pampers our indolence to

18

LAW OF CONFLICT.

adopt opinions; but to form opinions is better. Wherever conflict is possible, neither side has all the right, nor all the virtue, nor all the truth. Perpetuated conflict implies imperishable life and vigor on both sides of the line of battle. Conflict imbittered, uncompromising and cruel, implies excited passions and judicial blindness. Conflict arises through a law of existence as broad as society-as broad as nature. Progress is the issue of conflict, in every realm of being. Truth is a structure reared only on the battle-field of contending forces. Conflict is universal. Conflict is beneficent. But progress does not arise out of the extermination of one of the conflicting elements, but out of an arbitration which negatives extravagant claims, brings to light forgotten truths, and settles the contending elements in a temporary equilibrium. The "golden mean" is formed of the genuine metal. The judicial attitude is not the neutral or apathetic one. I fancy it is regal -honorable to the loftiest intellect-congenial to the purest conscience.

The great "conflict" of our day is between the claims of the religious nature and those of the intellect. On one side is consternation over the supposed encroachments of a hostile science; on the other, exultation over a deliverance from fancied bondage to religious credulity. I shall attempt to show that this consternation is unreasoning and groundless, and this exultation short-sighted and delirious.

Every student of the history of mental activity must have observed that a similar strife has been in existence ever since the dawn of reflective thought. Could we penetrate the prehistoric periods, I am confident it might be traced back to the very cradle of humanity. The religious instincts and the knowing faculties have always regarded each other with jealous eyes. I can not believe that this enduring conflict has no appointed place in the beneficent economy of a superintending Intelligence. I am persuaded it has a profound significance; and

RELIGIOUS NATURE INNATE.

19

it must be that a discovery of it will promote the interests of peace, comity, and truth.

A careful scrutiny of the real forces concerned in this secular controversy shows them to be the religious instincts and perceptions, on the one hand, and the cognitive powers on the other. Each has been resisting the supposed encroachments of the other; and, in resisting, has carried its pretensions beyond its own. legitimate territory. I have said that conflict implies a living principle arrayed on each side of the line of battle. I repeat that here are two living forces, which must strive in vain to exterminate each other, or even to deprive each other permanently of any of their natural rights. Why, then, are they always at

war?

From time immemorial we have heard denials of the religious nature of man. On the one hand, it has been imagined that the importance of Christianity would be aggrandized if it should appear that for all religious knowledge the world is indebted to Jewish and Christian inspiration. It was not perceived that the denial of man's religious intuitions is the extinction of all power of apprehending any divine revelation, or becoming the recipient of religious instruction. On the other hand, it has been thought that the importance of Christianity would be diminished if it should appear that no preparation for religious teaching had been made in the plan of human. nature. The belief has always been in existence, however, that some form of religious endowment is the characteristic of humanity, in all the conditions of its existence. This belief will be found supported by a great amount and variety of evidence.

1. The universality of religious belief and practice among all the peoples of the earth is a fact of the utmost significance. Its importance is enhanced by the fact that it has been combated by the most powerful intellects, and the strength of that array of debasing passions whose interests are alien to all the teachings of religion.

20

SOURCES OF EVIDENCE.

2. The religious nature of man is demonstrated by the prevalence of vast religious systems, which have embraced among their adherents four-fifths of all the populations which have. ever lived.

3. Man's religious nature is evinced by the fact that nearly all the poetry of the world is a clear reflection of it; while all the philosophy, either of ancient or modern times, has had for its object to find out the nature of the First Cause, recognized as the centre of all ethical aspirations and the ground of all ethical obligations, or else to unfold the law and order existing in the world as the ordination of the Supreme Will. The collisions between philosophy and religion, either in ancient or modern times, have not involved denials of divine existence and moral relations, but only of a particular mode of relations between God and the world, and between God and man.

4. Man's religious nature is demonstrated by the essentially

religious character of certain observances among all the savage

tribes of the world. It is here that misapprehensions have arisen ; but I am prepared to assert, after due examination, that there are not a dozen tribes in existence among whom may not be detected some belief or sentiment of an essentially religious character. It may be very unchristian in its mode of manifestation, but it will be found based on a recognition, more or less clear, of superior creative, controlling existence, to which man owes some sort of allegiance.

5. The existence of a religious nature is indicated by certain relics of prehistoric times, which, so far as we can judge, admit of no other than a religious interpretation. Such relics reach back to the remotest epoch of the Stone Age.

I must content myself with indicating these sources of evidence respecting the innate character of our universal religious sentiments. I desire next to remind you of the significance of any faculty, sentiment, or susceptibility found to be implanted in the very ground of our being. In the first place, it must

AUTHORITY OF INTUITIONS.

21

be good. The whole tenor and purport of Nature's plans teaches that the parts are adjusted for the mutual benefit of each other. In the next place, it can not be illusory. There is not an instance in nature of the existence of one correlate and the non-existence of its fellow. The echo implies the real voice. Religious longings imply the reality of their object, as the power of vision implies things visible. Not even are the brutal instincts deceptive. Gratification answers to desire. The insect care which arranges food for offspring still in the egg, and only to be developed months after the death of the mother which arranges it, is no more exempt from deception than humanity's longing for its God, or the individual's cry for divine help. Once establish the innate character of a sentiment, a belief, or intuition, and we trace in it a divine purpose, a divine utterance.

But I dismiss also the discussion of this theme. I have reached convictions, after much study; and my immovable belief has been a source of consolation and calm. I would earnestly commend to every thinker the study of the evidence in support of the existence and authority of innate sentiments, beliefs, and intuitions.

I must pass over, similarly, all discussion of the generalizations induced from the religious phenomena of our race. The following are the grand facts common to the religious faiths of the world:

1. A Supreme Being, the Author of all things in existence. 2. A Revelation of the Supreme Being, either in sensible things or in the intelligence of inspired men.

3. A System of Worship-which is either instinctive and aimless, or intended to propitiate the Deity, and win happiness for the worshiper. This worship consists in the uplifting of devout thoughts, sacrifices, feasts, fasts, prostrations, genuflec-' tions, singing, dancing, crossing, and a great number of other practices suited to the intellectual condition of the worshiper.