The consideration of that subject would lead into the wide field of the
relation between science and religion. Into that field we lack
competency and time to enter; a few remarks, however, on the subject
may not be out of place. Those remarks, we would fain make in a humble
way irenical. There is need of an Irenicum, for the fact is painfully
notorious that there is an antagonism between scientific men as a class,
and religious men as a class. Of course this opposition is neither felt
nor expressed by all on either side. Nevertheless, whatever may be the
cause of this antagonism, or whoever are to be blamed for it, there can
be no doubt that it exists and that it is an evil.
The first cause of the alienation in question is, that the two parties,
so to speak, adopt different rules of evidence, and thus can hardly
avoid arriving at different conclusions. To understand this we must
determine what is meant by science, and by scientific evidence. Science,
according to its etymology, is simply knowledge. But usage has limited
its meaning, in the first place, not to the knowledge of facts or
phenomena, merely, but to their causes and relations. It was said of
old, "[Greek: hoti] scientiae fundamentum, [Greek: dioti] fastigium." No
amount of materials would constitute a building. They must be duly
arranged so as to make a symmetrical whole. No amount of disconnected
data can constitute a science. Those data must be systematized in their
relation to each other and to other things. In the second place, the
word is becoming more and more restricted to the knowledge of a
particular class of facts, and of their relations, namely, the facts of
nature or of the external world. This usage is not universal, nor is it
fixed. In Germany, especially, the word _Wissenschaft_ is used of all
kinds of ordered knowledge, whether transcendental or empirical. So we
are accustomed to speak of mental, moral, social, as well as of natural
science. Nevertheless, the more restricted use of the word is very
common and very influential. It is important that this fact should be
recognized. In common usage, a scientific man is distinguished specially
from a metaphysician. The one investigates the phenomena of matter, the
other studies the phenomena of mind, according to the old distinction
between physics and metaphysics. Science, therefore, is the ordered
knowledge of the phenomena which we recognize through the senses. A
scientific fact is a fact perceived by the senses. Scientific evidence
is evidence addressed to the senses. At one of the meetings of the
Victoria Institute, a visitor avowed his disbelief in the existence of
God. When asked, what kind of evidence would satisfy him? he answered,
Just such evidence as I have of the existence of this tumbler which I
now hold in my hand. The Rev. Mr. Henslow says, "By science is meant the
investigation of facts and phenomena recognizable by the senses, and of
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