Essays Upon Some Controverted QuestionsHuxley, Thomas Henry
Religion
Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
occupy wholly different spheres, and need in no way intermeddle with
each other. They revolve, as it were, in different planes, and so never
meet. Thus we may pursue scientific studies with the utmost freedom
and, at the same time, may pay the most reverent regard to theology,
having no fears of collision, because allowing no points of contact (p.
29).
Surely every unsophisticated mind will heartily concur with the Bishop's
remark upon this convenient refuge for the descendants of Mr.
Facing-both-ways. "I have never been able to understand this position,
though I have often seen it assumed." Nor can any demurrer be sustained
when the Bishop proceeds to point out that there are, and must be, various
points of contact between theological and natural science, and therefore
that it is foolish to ignore or deny the existence of as many dangers of
collision.
Finally, the Bishop of Manchester freely admits the force of the objections
which have been raised, on scientific grounds, to prayer, and attempts to
turn them by arguing that the proper objects of prayer are not physical but
spiritual. He tells us that natural accidents and moral misfortunes are not
to be taken {302} for moral judgments of God; he admits the propriety of
the application of scientific methods to the investigation of the origin
and growth of religions; and he is as ready to recognise the process of
evolution there, as in the physical world. Mark the following striking
passage:--
And how utterly all the common objections to Divine revelation vanish
away when they are set in the light of this theory of a spiritual
progression. Are we reminded that there prevailed, in those earlier
days, views of the nature of God and man, of human life and Divine
Providence, which we now find to be untenable? _That_, we answer, is
precisely what the theory of development presupposes. If early views of
religion and morality had not been imperfect, where had been the
development? If symbolical visions and mythical creations had found no
place in the early Oriental expression of Divine truth, where had been
the development? The sufficient answer to ninety-nine out of a hundred
of the ordinary objections to the Bible, as the record of a divine
education of our race, is asked in that one word--development. And to
what are we indebted for that potent word, which, as with the wand of a
magician, has at the same moment so completely transformed our
knowledge and dispelled our difficulties? To modern science, resolutely
pursuing its search for truth in spite of popular obloquy and--alas!
that one should have to say it--in spite too often of theological
denunciation (p. 53).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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