The Life and Letters of George John Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. — John Shaqi
The Life and Letters of George John Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.Romanes, George John
Science
The Life and Letters of George John Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.
Romanes, George John
Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Romanes, George John, 1848-1894
Many a noble soul made shipwreck of its faith, nor is this disaster
wonderful. For popular theology had made many unwise, many untenable
claims, and the ground had to be cleared before the battle could be
fought out on its real issues. There were some who, amidst all the
strife of tongues, kept their heads, remembered bygone storms, and
did not lose their courage, their whole-heartedness, but they were
few, and were not over much heard or heeded.[18] For the most part,
those on the Christian side adopted the line taken by the Bishop
of Oxford in his review of Mr. Darwin's 'Origin of Species' in the
'Quarterly Review,' and in his famous speech at Oxford during the
British Association of 1860.
Certainly the outlook now is more encouraging than it was twenty
years ago.
It has been well and eloquently said by one than whom none is
more qualified to speak on this subject:[19] 'It is quite certain
that this scientific obstacle has been, in the main, removed. In
part, it has been through the theologians abandoning false claims,
and learning, if somewhat unwillingly, that they have no "Bible
revelation" in matters of science; in part, it has been through its
becoming continually more apparent, that the limits of scientific
"explanation" of nature are soon reached; that the ultimate causes,
forces, conditions of nature are as unexplained as ever, or rather
postulate as ever for their explanation a Divine mind. Thus, if
one "argument from design" was destroyed, another was only brought
into prominence. No account which science can give, by discovery or
conjecture, of the method of creation, can ever weaken the argument
which lies from the universality of law, order, and beauty in the
universe to the universality of mind. The mind of man looks forth
into nature, and finds nowhere unintelligible chance, but everywhere
an order, a system, a law, a beauty, which corresponds, as greater
to less, to his own rational and spiritual intuitions, methods, and
expectations. Universal order, intelligibility, beauty, mean that
something akin to the human spirit, something of which the human
spirit is an offshoot and a reflection, is in the universe before it
is in man.
'Or, again, a prolonged period of controversy and reflection has
resulted in making it fairly apparent that no scientific doctrine
or conjecture about the dim origins of the spiritual life of man
can affect the argument from its development and persistence. It
has developed and persisted, as one of the most prominent features
of human life, solely on the postulate of God. And is it not out
of analogy with all that science teaches us to imagine that so
important, continuous, and universal a development of human faculty
could have arisen and persisted unless it were in correspondence with
reality?
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