RECONCILIATION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION. BY ALEXANDER WINCHELL, LL.D., AUTHOR OF SKETCHES OF CREATION," Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE. WHAT are the natural relations between science and religion? This is a question in which the public has recently manifested a profound interest. On this question a layman and scientific teacher here ventures to offer some thoughts. The discussions in which they are embodied aim to reach some of the groundprinciples on which the propositions of science and religion alike rest. They enunciate a substantial basis of harmony and mutual helpfulness, and disclose a promised synthesis of deepest scientific conviction and simplest religious faith. The author has written as he felt profoundly moved to write. He has made a record of honest and earnest convictions; and he flatters himself that his record nowhere betrays the spirit of a partisan. The thoughts here presented, though lying generally beyond the peculiar domain of natural science, have mingled themselves, by a spontaneous interplay of the psychic powers, with the dry details and lofty generalizations of strict science. They have been to the author a source of enjoyment, consolation, and assurance; and he hopes they may serve to ballast the faith of others who have less opportunity for reflection, but who must, nevertheless, if they think at all, grapple with the inevitable and irrepressible questions which arise concerning the validity of their religious beliefs. The author has always entertained an unshaken conviction of the unity of all truth; and the right of all our faculties to activity within limits prescribed or sanctioned by reason. He (RECAP) 5091 977 29838 |