A majority of the people in all countries have always possessed a strong inclination for committing those crimes which, we have shown, the Christian Bible appears to sanction. Hence the Bible, with all its counteracting precepts, will only add fuel to the fire, for the reason already pointed out. Those who do not know this must be ignorant of the most important principles of moral science, and the elements of human nature. Right here is where Christians commit a serious mistake. They scatter their Bibles among the heathen by the thousand, assuming that it will have the effect to moralize and civilize them, while they can find a warrant in it (as shown in the preceding chapter) for every species of crime they have been in the habit of committing. This is a solemn error they have been committing for ages. Hence their missionary labors, instead of reforming the heathen, have only tended to demoralize them, where they have not been counteracted by the more rational religion of science and nature, as they have been in many cases. Many facts could be adduced to prove this statement, some of which may be found in Chapter 50. ("Bible a Moral Necessity"). Wherever the Bible has been introduced, without the arts and sciences to counteract its influence (as in Abyssinia and the Samoan Islands), crime has increased. History proves that wherever the Bible has been circulated without any counteracting influences, both in Christian and heathen nations, it has had the effect to weaken the moral strength of the people, lower their natural appreciation of virtue and a true moral life, and has had a tendency to popularize crime by making it more respectable. It is therefore an _unsuitable book_ to circulate as a guide for the moral conduct of man _in any country_. CHAPTER XLIX.--THE BIBLE AT WAR WITH EIGHTEEN SCIENCES. The word "science" is from the Latin _scire_ ("to know"). Hence every statement incompatible with the teachings and principles of science is simply _ignorance_ arrayed against _knowledge_. It may surprise some who have been taught that the Bible contains "a perfect embodiment of truth," or who believe, with the redoubtable Dr. Cheever, that "the Bible does not contain the shadow of a shade of error from Genesis to Revelations,"--it will doubtless surprise all such persons to be told, that, so far from Dr. Cheever's statement being correct, "the Holy Book," by a fair estimate, is found to contain more than nine thousand scientific errors alone; i.e., more than nine thousand statements and assumptions which conflict with the established principles of modern science, besides errors in morals and history, &c.