It is not merely in a few unimportant scientific details, but in the fundamental principles of the most important sciences--of astronomy, of geology, of geography, and of man--that the Bible errs. Its writers evince no divine knowledge of the facts of nature. Their works exhibit the crude notions of the age in which they lived. Some of their teachings are in harmony with the accepted truths of Science; but these prove no more than a human origin. The wisest of mankind do not know all; the most ignorant know something. While there are phenomena too complex for the mind of a Newton or a Darwin to grasp, there are others regarding which the first impressions of a child are correct. To assert that the Bible is in harmony with the teachings of Modern Science is to assert that no advancement has been made in Science for two thousand years, when all know that many of the most marvelous scientific discoveries are less than two hundred years old. The scientific attainments of Bible writers were not above those of the age and country in which they lived, and probably far below; for the Bible is largely the work of theologians, and theologians have ever been behind their age in scientific knowledge. The mission of theologians is not to advance, but to retard Science. They have waged a relentless but ineffective warfare against it. In the words of Huxley: "Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science, as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules." "The Hebrew Pentateuch," says Gerald Massey, "has not only retarded the growth of science for eighteen centuries, but the ignorant believers in it as a book of revelation have tried to strangle every science at its birth. There could be and was but little or no progress in Astronomy, Geology, Biology, or Sociology until its teachings were repudiated by the more enlightened among men." Of the Bible and Science thus writes America's eminent scientist and author, Dr. John W. Draper: "It is to be regretted that the Christian church has burdened itself with the defense of these books, and voluntarily made itself answerable for their manifest contradictions and errors.... Still more, it is to be deeply regretted that the Pentateuch, a production so imperfect as to be unable to stand the touch of modern criticism, should be put forth as the arbiter of science" (Conflict Between Religion and Science, p. 225). "The world is not to be discovered through the vain traditions that have brought down to us the opinions of men who lived in the morning of civilization, nor in the dreams of mystics who thought that they were inspired" (Ibid, p. 33).