The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1883-05-02
Science is
But an exchange Of Ignorance for that
Which j. another kind OF Ignorance
might pxDress IL by saving that we are be

Science is
But an exchange Of Ignorance for thai
Which is another kind OF ignorance"
We might express it by saying that we are be
coming more and more learnedly ignorant.
And my nearer, if it happens that your
mind rebels against faith as something that is
at variance with wholesome intellectual &C
ton, and under theban of all that is scientific,
and mentally discreet, wish You would, with
hat in mind, read largely Of our standard
works Of science, late or early. Take such
work, for example, as Darwin's "0rigin Of
Species" To me one of the most impressive
features of the book is the ease and good
humor with which in it science and faith get
along together | do not mean his faith in
God-perhaps he had none-I mean his faith,
his constant walk by the assurance of things
hoped for, by the conviction of things unseen.
That is faith, and Darwin had that in proper
tons that were simply colossal. He had
magnificent faith in his theory, the theory of
Evolution. He could not prove the theory,
and he knew he couldn't, and what is more he
continually confessed that he couldn't. Over
and over again, with all the simplicity Of
child, he admits that his convictions run away
ahead of his proofs. And it is so in all of
these books so far as / am familiar with them.
Their conclusions are a great deal larger than
their premises. That is not spoken in a criti-
cal spirit. l am not finding fault with the
Evolution, nor with Mr.. Darwin's book. l am
only saying that he was man of immense
faith he COLD not have written as he did if
he hadn't been; he reached results without
stopping to he logical that is faith. lie had
faith, Just the same kind of faith that Isaiah
had, only exercised toward his doctrine in
stead Of exercised toward God. If be had
been as disposed to walk by the conviction of
an invisible God as he was 10 walk by the
conviction of an undemonstrated hypothesis,
he might have turned out as sublime prophet
as Isaiah, or as superb an apostle as st. Paul.
l have no controversy with evolution. Men
object to religion because it is such a tax on
faith; and only want you should look direct
ly at the fact, that in the priests of science,
faith, just such faith as Peter and John had,
is distinguishing feature-in fact it is to
faith as much as to anything that their SUI
premacy in the priesthood of science is due
and if the faith of Darwin, of Tyndal, Of
Haeckel, Of Herbert Spencer, had been as
sublimely exercised toward God as it was to-
ward the conjectures engendered in their own
brains, there would have been power enough
in them to found in the middle of the nine
teenth century a second Church of the Apos-
ties.
Besides this, you will, think, be helped
to regard religious faith with more respect if
you will consider the mental calibre of some
men who have been religious believers. | do
not mean that this is a matter that can be
settled by ballot. We are not going to vote
God in or out by show of hands. Only if you
have a suspicion that faith is a euphemism
for intellectual debility, facts are at hand to
f1,o IVahgFgr
died at Marshfeld, Oct. ~, 1852. | had the
privilege awhile ago, of seeing the original
paper on which, under date Of the tenth of that
month, he penned few lines of confession.
At the top of the page are the words from
Mark, "' Lord, believe help thou mine I'M
belief" Underneath among other sentences,
is this my heart has always assured me,
and treasured me, that the Gospel Of Jesus
Christ must be divine reality" In some
sentences Of Bismarck's occur these words I:
Z" The firm stand that for ten years | have
taken against all possible absurdities of the
court, | owe purely to my decided faith. If l
were not Christian and firm believer, you
would never have had such chancellor. Take
away from me my relation TO God, and | am
the man to pack up tomorrow and be off for
Yarzin This ancestral estatc). Gladstone,
whom we so easily think of in connection with
Bismarck, has spoken with far more of ten
derness and effect. In the department of
literature are to be cited the names of Shakes
peare, Milton, Goethe. Jesus Christ was
more thar man." said Napoleon. Prof Tyn-
dal in an address to English wcrkingmen, has
within little time not only explicitly denied
that he was an atheist, but went so far as to
say that in view of the daily wonders of ma
ture, "only a shallow man Chose are his
words "can be satisfied to be an atheist" 1t
was one of the last utterauces Of the late ply
sicist, Maxwell Every good and every
perfect gift is from above, and cometh down
from the Father of lights, with whom is no
variableness neither shadow or turning" In
opening his school at Penikese Island, Agassiz
gathered his pupils around him and said at
is becoming that we first Of all bow in the pre-
sence Of the Infinite One, and thus recognize
His sovereignty, superlative wisdom and bene-
iicence.' Other names which belong in the
roll of ilustrious scientists who were at the
same time religious believers, are such as
Calico, Kepler, Bacon, Newton, Cuvier, Her
schel, Owen, Faraday. As ] said, we are not
calling the ayes and noes on the question Of
God and no God, only such list of names IL
Illustrates that strong mental grasp and strong
faith-grasp, can coexist easily and pleasantly /;
that there is therefore no inherent antagonism
between the two, so that if we have clean in
tellects and are unbelievers, it is something
beside our keen intellects that causes us to be
unbelievers, and the most practical and i'm
pressive question we can ask ourselves, is
what that something is.
And now to this same hesitant class Of hear
ers there is one other thing l want to say in
behalf of faith. 1t is not intellectual debility:
Il. H. To-
is the point want to make), on the contrary,
faith is the very heroism and enterprise of in
tellect Faith is not passivity, but a faculty.
Faith is power, the material Of effect. Faith
is kind of winged intellect. The great work
men Of history have been men who believed
like giants. Take the eleventh of Hebrews,
that famous roli-call of God men Of faith, and
the men that made events for two thousand
years are all in it-Noah, Abraham, Moses,
Gideon, David. And ever since then the men
that have helped the world forward and
wrought great effects in the world, have been
those who have lived by the power and fas-
cination exerted upon them by the things out
side their horizon, by the power Of unseen
things flung up upon their sky in mirage.
Standing upon the shores of Spain, Columbus
reasoned upon the driftwood borne in on the
western tide, but there was a million times
more in his conclusions than there was in the
driftwood. His winged thought had reached
the great West before the Santa Maria weighed
anchor in Palos. Fail discovered America
and made Columbus more royal than the
crowned heads of Europe. Faith is the hero
ism Of intellect. Nothing would ever have
been done in the world if before the deed the
doer had waited to calculate all the elements
in the case and compute all the contingencies.
Every great effect and grand discovery begins