The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-09-24
Science VS.. Religion.

At last the battle between Science and
Religion has fairly opened. Omlnous
rumblings of the approaching storm have
been heard from time to time-falnt DIS
charges, as it were, of musketry on two
opposite picket-lines of thought. -AgassiZ
and Darwin. smaller divines and lesser
scientists have occasionally engaged IN
single combat on the issue, and the first
named gentleman, who vainly u1ed 10
play the role of mediator once, with his
declaration that he would prefer to believe
that he was descended from an angel
rather than to have assembled from an ape,
came very nearly bringing on the clash of
arms. The inevitable result was for a
time postponed, but the conflict from the
first was irrepressible. Now it has been
suddenly precipitated on an interpreting
world. The great leader of the army of
Science not only throws down the gage,
but he boldly, defiantly, and thousands
will say wickedly, attacks the Citadel of
Truth. To drop the metaphor, Professor
John Tyndall, President of the British
Association of Science, the foremost body
of its class in the world. in his annual adj
dress has declared war to the knife against
Religion, assuming that its opinions must
no longer stand in the way of physical in
vestigation, and avowing materialism of
the broadcast type and most general char
acter.
The address reaches us simultaneously
in the London correspondence of the New
York journals and our own foreign ex-
changes. Lengthy and learned as it is, it
can be stated in paragraph or two. Mr..
Tyndall first gives history of scientific
thought. This began with Democritus,
400 b. c., who first enunciated the scien-
tific method. He traces its gradual pro-
gress through Empedocles. Epicurus, Luz
cretius, Copernicus, GasSendi, Kant and
Draper. to the modern names familiar to
cultured readers. Incidentally the address
is marked by an affluence of learning,
magnificence of rhetoric. and lOftiness
of thought, which must make it for
ever memorable. Incidentally, we find
such admissions as this: "'Did | not
believe said a great man to me once.
that an intelligence is at the heart of
things, my life on earth would be intOlera-
BILE The utterer of these words is not, in
my opinion, rendered less noble, but more
noble, by the fact that it was the need of
ethical harmony here, and not the thought
of personal profit hereafter, that prompted
his observation" Again, such an asser-
ton as this. made when the narration
reaches the Christian era: 1.-The science
of ancient Greece had cleared the world of
the fantastic images of divinities operating
capriciously through natural phenomena ;
il had invited scientific method, and rem
dered it in great measure complete by the
union of Induction and Experiment.
What stopped its victorious advance?'
and Mr.. Tyndall answers the inquiry
by declaring that Christianity was the OBJ
stacle.
He gives an unqualified approval to the
doctrines of Darwin, Huxley and Spencer,
bold rebuke to theologic domga, a noble
tribute to the Bible. and a sneering denial
of Genesis; a general assertion of the idea
that. mot for six thousand, not for sixty
thousand. not for six hundred thousand.
but for icons embracing untold millions of
wears, this earth has been the theater OF
life and death" The position of science,
he says, is impregnable, and then we have
the remarkable admission: "HOu who
have escaped from these religions into the
high and dry light of the understanding
may deride them: but in so doing you de
ride accidents of. Orm merely, and fail TO
touch the immOvable basis of the religious
sentiment in the emotional nature OF man.
To Weld this sentiment reasonable salts
faction is the problem of problems at the
present hour" We believe we have suffi-
GENTLY indicated the line of thought and
scope of the address to give the newspaper
reader clear idea of its effect. Others will
seek it in its entirety elsewhere.
What will strike the man of average
culture most fOrcibly in its reading will
be the infallibility which Professor
Tyndall assumes for science, and his
admission of the profundity of religious
sentiment, and its character as an in
herent element of mans nature. He
sees in matter the promise and potency
of every form and quality of life, and
yet he admits the craving for spirit, if not
its actual existence. The antagoniSms
cannot be recOnciled even in the mind of
the veriest tyrO in logic. And here we
have an admission that science is not in
fallible. 1t is not yet sure of its footsteps
certain that it is not crossing a quag-
mire. 1t is built upon deductions, theO-
ries and doubts. The speculatiOns of But
Ter and Buckle rest upon as solid basis as
those of Darwin and Huxley. If Professor
Tyndall can reach back ten thousand
years into the worlds history. and extract
ing chunk of clay, build upon it a system
which we must believe, why cannot the
faith which has become part of man
himself, which fulffllS the craving for eth
zeal harmony, of which the Professor
speaks. and which rests on no slightPr
foundation, be believed with equal implic-
illness? Astronomers tell Us that the tail
of the recent comet, distant an incOnceiv-
able space from our planet, was many mil
lions of miles in length. and that it only
weighed half a pound. Professor Tyndall
doubtless accepts this assertion as much as
truth as most people would have done had
they actually seen the mass measured with
a Diapers yardstick and weighed in gro
GERS scales. And yet men are credulOus
for clinging to religion. A speck of dirt
or the weight of fly would destroy the
accuracy of the original pair of balances at
Troycs, and the mistake of single figure
will destroy the minutest calculations of a
Whewell or Herschel. Of course, the eX-
ample we have cited may be exceptional.
but in some respects tits typical. Science,
which accuses all the rest of the world of
blindness, often accepts the widest con-
lectures as positive truth, with the simple
innocence of the small child who shuts its
eyes and swallows salt with the conviction
that it is sugar. Let us accept no man as
an oracle save on the clearest proof.-PhiL-
adeiphiG Press.