The New York herald., 1874-09-20
Science or scriptures Which!-Ths
Issues OF the New Philosophy.

urecuy ana denantly, by tne asSenipiou i'P
resentatives of science, through It's chosen
chiet, at Belfast; and, when the deed was
done, no cry or horror rose, but only the ap-
plause of the great Congress. 1t now tran
spires that when. just as the British Assocl-
alton was about to adjourn and one OF It's
members offered paper-'A Plea for Peace
Between Science and Theology it was re-
jected, and thus the seal of approval of Mr.
I Tyndalrs address formally put.
The undisguised attempt to sweep away the
bulwalks of Christianity by those claiming to
speak for science must awaken profound at
! tention and elicit the analytic test OF the rea-
soning by which science seeks to justify itself
The issue is not made between science and
the various church systems or the varied in
terpretations put upon the Scriptures 1t is
made directly against the Scriptures them
Selves and we are thus confronted with the
startling alternative, Scripture or Science:
which,"
The great policy Of modern scientists of
the Tyndall and Huxley school is to transfer
the fight to the domain of molecular physics.
One of the latest terms invented by Mr.. Hux-
ley to represent his ideas is 'sensigenous
molecules" by which he means material
atoms having the power not only of exercising
thought, but of generating thought, feeling
volition and whatever else characterizes mind.
This 'weapon of air." like so many others of
the same texture forged in the busy brain of
its inventor, will doubtless be brandished with
vast effect by the many scientific followers Of
MIR. Huxley. While no sensible antagonist
will care to wrest it from them it is another
proof of the unscientiic charlatanry sought
to be imposed on q credulous age, but which
needs only to be noticed in order to be de-
tected. Evolution can gain nothing by shift
ing the proposed inquiry regarding the So
called law Of the universe from the domain
of the visible and tangible to that Of molecu-
lar physics If the physical cosmos is under
the reign of law, as it is claimed, that law
makes no distinction between great and
small The snowdrop and the avalanche
must fall in obedience to the same
law. The hypothetical atom, under the infu-
ence of the suns heat, must expand accord
ing to the same rule by which the tropical
ocean is dilated. And If in the grand work
shops Of nature, open TO the inspection Of the
peasant and philosopher alike, the evolution
ist can find no adequate demonstration of his
system, his recourse to the molecular world,
which recedes even from the gaze of the
microscope, is confession of his conscious
failure
Half century ago it was attempted to con-
found Scripture by an appeal to the testimony
of the rocks Geology, in the ardor of
novice unable to combine its discoveries with
the oracaes of Christianity like Martin Luther
(when he could not explain one of the Apos-
tolic epistles), rudely rejected all that it
| could not understand. On the contrary,
the endeavor has been earnestly made even
ad nanseam, to reconcile the hypothesis of
geology with the Scriptural record of crea-
| ton; and, very justly, the divines who have
essayed this have been snubbed by the men
of science. The truth is there Is no reconcile
alton between the Mosaic record and the hy:
potheses of modern geology. One or the other
must give way and Christians must make
their election. few years ago dis
tinguished Fellow of the Royal So
cety, Mr. Philip Henry Gosse, very
! strikingly brought out the idea that the
physical creation could not have existed other
wise than in direct and manifest subordination
to human headship. A world full of sentient
beings without responsible, intelligent Head
is an idea wholly foreign (even from the
standpoint of natural religion) to all that we
can conceive of an intelligent Deity's order
| Tla ,,,,;tr -.
precludes the thought of a world without
presiding authority Scientific theorists
assert that death-violent, painful death-was
in the world through uncounted ages before
man existed, and represent prehistoric con-
dition of things destitute of every vestige of
government. The human mind recoils from
this as unworthy of its own wisdom, and in
fnitely SO of Divine power Such reign
Of death as the geologist tells us took place in
the prehuman eras (the older pliocene forma-
tons of the tertiary period being vast ceme-
teres of the animal life) show conclusively
that some great catastrophe had befallen
the world and brought ruin upon it-a
condition of things for which science has
never proposed any solution half 80 plausible
as that of Scripture. The Scriptural solution
(that ''sin entered into the world and death by
sin") only announces principle upon which
society has based all its legislation and en-
forced all its moral codes, viz. That sin must
inevitably bring punishment. But the scien-
tifc solution of the geologists' facts lands
us in the dense fog of speculation. Nay, it
brings us to point where every sane mind
necessarily cannot but refuse to advance
for it involves the intolerable supposition
that the Creator left His innocent handiwork
in the lordship Of death and under the sway
Of forces which in the successive terrestrial
strata had piled graveyards upon grave
yards filled with the remains of earth's fairest
fauna and flora. Geologys facts can be solved