[6] 'Revolt of Islam,' canto xii. [7] See his bitter letters to Lady Suffolk. THE TRUE RELATIONS OF THE BIBLE TO MERELY HUMAN SCIENCE. It is sometimes said, that a religious messenger from God does not come amongst men for the sake of teaching truths in science, or of correcting errors in science. Most justly is this said: but often in terms far too feeble. For generally these terms are such as to imply, that, although no direct and imperative function of his mission, it was yet open to him, as a permissible function--that, although not pressing with the force of an obligation upon the missionary, it was yet at his discretion--if not to correct other men's errors, yet at least in his own person to speak with scientific precision. I contend that it was _not_. I contend, that to have uttered the truths of astronomy, of geology, &c., at the era of new- born Christianity, was not only _below_ and _beside_ the purposes of a religion, but would have been _against_ them. Even upon errors of a far more important class than errors in science can ever be--superstitions, for instance, that degraded the very idea of God; prejudices and false usages, that laid waste human happiness (such as slavery, and many hundreds of other abuses that might be mentioned), the rule evidently acted upon by the Founder of Christianity was this--Given the purification of the well-head, once assumed that the fountains of truth are cleansed, all these derivative currents of evil will cleanse themselves. As a general rule, the branches of error were disregarded, and the roots only attacked. If, then, so lofty a station was taken with regard even to such errors as really _had_ moral and spiritual relations, how much more with regard to the comparative trifles (as in the ultimate relations of human nature they are) of merely human science! But, for my part, I go further, and assert, that upon three reasons it was impossible for any messenger from God (or offering himself in that character) to have descended into the communication of truth merely scientific, or economic, or worldly. And the three reasons are these:--_First_, Because such a descent would have degraded his mission, by lowering it to the base level of a collusion with human curiosity, or (in the most favorable case) of a collusion with petty and transitory interests. _Secondly_, Because it would have ruined his mission, by disturbing its free agency, and misdirecting its energies, in two separate modes: first, by destroying the spiritual _auctoritas_ (the prestige and consideration) of the missionary; secondly, by vitiating the spiritual atmosphere of his audience--that is, corrupting and misdirecting the character of their thoughts and expectations. He that in the early days of Christianity should have proclaimed the true theory of the solar system, or that by any chance word or allusion should then, in a condition of man so little prepared to receive such truths, have asserted or assumed