! v 
 r^ 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
an 
 
v. Lord William 
 Qascoyne Cecil 
 
 HOWDEIl ^^'D STOUGHTOW 
 MCMVl. 
 
Printed at 
 
 Ye Edinburgh "Prcu, 
 68 Old fBailey, London, .C 
 

 FOTlEWOll'D. 
 
 ESE addresses were de- 
 livered in substance at St. 
 Lawrance Jewry, during 
 Lent. 
 
 In trying to reduce to 
 
 writing what was spoken without notes, I 
 must of necessity have deviated somewhat from 
 
 the original. But they are, if not the same 
 \ 
 
 i words, of similar import. 
 
 I am aware that the word "science" in my 
 mouth has a presumptuous sound, as I have 
 no scientific qualifications at all, and, there- 
 fore, can only speak as one of the crowd. 
 Yet, as one of the crowd nowadays, one has a 
 right to speak, for this is an age that despises 
 
 C1 
 
 5cience and 
 (Religion 
 
 (7) 
 
 M368131 
 
all "authority" and reckons humility out 
 of date. 
 
 t^ot only does one meet at every turn 
 people to whom life has no secrets and thought 
 no difficulties, men to whom state-craft is 
 child's play, political economy, simplicity, 
 metaphysics, nonsense, but one also meets men 
 who deem that the great mysteries of religion 
 of which the Saints, after years of struggle 
 and effort, won but a glimpse, are non-existent 
 because, to their own proud and scornful 
 hearts, such beautiful truths must be hidden. 
 So if I am accused of conceit by those who 
 are better acquainted with modern science, my 
 defence must be, that I deal with the know- 
 ledge of the age in the spirit of the age. 
 
 I write not in the medieval spirit of sub- 
 mission, but in the modern spirit of revolt. 
 
 I revolt, not against what is beautiful or 
 
 Science and 
 Religion 
 
 (S) 
 
what is true, but against that spirit of inso- 
 lence, which is recklessly tearing down that 
 wonderful civilisation that Christian workers 
 have built up with endless pains and trouble. 
 I do not doubt the wonderful nature of the 
 discoveries vouchsafed to this age, but I doubt 
 whether they are final, and whether in the 
 light of the wonderful discoveries of subsequent 
 ages our knowledge will not seem ignorance. 
 
 And so among other scientific formulas, I 
 do not doubt that evolution or the survival of 
 the fittest or the law of heredity are true, yet 
 I doubt if they express the whole truth, and in 
 this distrust of the finality of modern dis- 
 coveries I am confirmed by the obvious reluc- 
 tance that most evolutionists shew to trusting 
 the well-being of the community in which they 
 live to the logical deductions of the theory of 
 the " survival of the fittest." 
 
 5cience and 
 (Religion 
 
 \(9) 
 
s 
 
 In fact, the more earnest a man's denuncia- 
 tions of Christianity, the more certainly does 
 he defend with fervour an action which is 
 defensible only on the supposition that Chris- 
 tianity is true. 
 
 ^he statute book ts said to reflect most 
 accurately the real convictions of the com- 
 munity, but not only is no law founded on the 
 principles of evolution ever made, but no pro- 
 posal is ever put forth which has for its object 
 the destruction of the unfit, and the preserva- 
 tion of the fittest. 
 
 One might reasonably expect, for instance, 
 that under the influence of Darwinism the 
 penalty of death might be more frequently 
 inflicted. From the Christian point of view, 
 the fear that an immortal soul might be 
 destroyed by a too summary end to life has 
 rightly or wrongly acted as a cause for the 
 
 cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (10) 
 
reduction in frequency of the death penalty, 
 but why, from an evolutionist point of view, 
 should there be any doubt on the subject P // 
 the man is unfit, he should be destroyed. If 
 this is true of grown-up men, it is even more 
 true with regard to children; they have the 
 whole of life before them, and, with it, the 
 endless possibilities of procreation of heirs to 
 their evil passions. 
 
 The gallows should take the place of the 
 reformatory in a state in which Darwinism 
 was accepted as the last word of knowledge. 
 
 Christians only, with their faith in super- 
 natural help, are logical in trying to reform 
 the lowest and the most criminal. The 
 doubter in the supernatural is merely imbecile 
 in preserving the unfit. 
 
 Again, the unhealthy slum and the low 
 public-house are great destroyers of the unfit, 
 
 5cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (ID 
 
and, as such, should receive every encourage- 
 ment from the materialistic unbeliever, while 
 on the other hand, rich rewards should be 
 freely given to the successful and every en- 
 couragement given them to marry and to have 
 many children. In fact, evolution, with its 
 harsh doctrine of the survival of the fittest is 
 a faith that would befit a cruel arislocratical 
 state, a state in which the poor were always 
 crushed because they were less fit to survive, 
 and the successful were made rich and de- 
 fended in unbridled concubinage. 
 
 *{jhat no one advocates the formation of 
 such a state must be either because evolution- 
 ists are untrue to their convictions, which is 
 not probable, or that they regard, as we do, 
 evolution as one of those half truths which 
 are such a pitfall to the careless : that in the 
 "great undiscovered" there are many truths 
 
 f c/ence and 
 Religion 
 
 (12) 
 
which will make the Christian ideal of 
 preserving the wretched and weak, wisdom of 
 the highest order, and, therefore, while their 
 reason condemns their action, they are faith- 
 ful to the higher ideal which they feel to be 
 true even when condemned by reason. 
 
 There is another thing I doubt with regard 
 to modern discovery, namely, as to whether 
 the merit of an actual discovery is rightly 
 attributed to the actual discoverer. He has, 
 no doubt, his share, but the share is less than 
 we are wont to give, not only because he was, 
 as a rule, merely the fortunate one out of 
 many searchers, and those who fail as well as 
 he who finds, merit our gratitude. But 
 neither those who found or those who failed 
 merited the whole praise. It was rather those 
 who organised human thought so as to make 
 this work possible, who established order and 
 
 rcience and 
 Religion 
 
 (13) 
 
discipline in society so that learned men had 
 leisure, and, lastly, who taught self-control, 
 which has prevented the finest specimens of 
 mankind from becoming unfecund from ex- 
 cess, or, in a word, those workmen who have 
 built up our modern civilisation. 
 
 That they were Christians seems to me to 
 be obvious from the "control experiment" 
 which has been carried out in other parts of 
 the world and at other periods. 
 
 Christendom does not contain the majority 
 of mankind, yet its races have produced 
 nearly a totality of scientific workers. Our 
 age is in the history of mankind but a brief 
 one, yet during this brief age modern science 
 has been produced. Surely the fact that the 
 age that has read the Bible is the age that 
 has succeeded in unravelling the mysteries of 
 creation, is not without significance. 
 
 f c/ence and 
 Religion 
 
 (14) 
 
When the Bible was a closed book oil 
 progress was slow. When the Bible was 
 opened all other knowledge flowed in on 
 mankind. 
 
 This was no accident, it was cause and 
 effect. Knowledge is not the result of dis- 
 covery but of that state of civilisation which 
 makes discovery possible, and our civilisation 
 is the direct result of Bible study. The 
 Church gave the Bible and the Bible built up 
 a civilisation in which knowledge was loved. 
 Many fear that religion is on the wane in our 
 country ; if that is so, science will soon follow 
 her to the grave and the science of this age 
 will, like the science of the Egyptians, like 
 the science of the Greeks, // e the science of 
 the Moors, be passed on to some nation more 
 worthy of the great responsibility that is given 
 by the possession of knowledge. 
 
 'cienceand 
 Religion 
 
 (15) 
 
" JXCarvellous are Thy works; and that my 
 soul knoweth right well" 
 
 'Psalms cxxxix., 14. 
 
I HERE are many, espe- 
 cially among the work- 
 ing classes, who are 
 greatly troubled in their 
 minds at what they 
 think is the contradiction between 
 science and religion, and they have 
 before them this most unpleasant alterna- 
 tive, either they must accept religion and 
 turn a deaf ear to all the knowledge 
 that the patient research of the workers 
 at natural science have brought to light, 
 or they must turn their backs on religion 
 and, doing despite to their most cherished 
 beliefs, enter on that dreary road which 
 begins with knowledge and ends in hell, 
 
 ] cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (19) 
 
or to use the more proper scientific phrase, 
 ends in a pessimistic materialism. 
 
 To avoid either of these most unplea- 
 sant conclusions many have started the 
 regrettable mental habit of having two 
 separate minds which, as they are never 
 co-ordinated, allow them to believe two 
 sets of separate facts, many of which are 
 in direct contradiction to one another. 
 This course solves the difficulty, but it 
 clearly tends to degrade the ideal of 
 truth, and is therefore inconsistent in 
 anyone who professes to be a worshipper 
 of the True Qod. 
 
 There remains one other course and that 
 is to inquire whether these contradictions 
 are real and whether it is necessary to try 
 any of those three most sad alternatives. 
 
 ^cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (20) 
 
Science has coined a word which is 
 supposed to contain in it all that is most 
 opposed to revealed religion the word 
 Evolution. It is first regarded as abso- 
 lutely inconsistent with the first chapter 
 of Genesis. If Genesis is to be regarded 
 as a prosaic account of the Creation of 
 Man, it hardly needed to wait these 
 many centuries for its confutation. The 
 account of the Garden of Eden with its 
 Tree of Knowledge and its Tree of Life ; 
 With its Serpent who speaks and its 
 Cherubim with flaming swords is so ob- 
 viously not historical that one wonders at 
 the mental attitude of men who can ever 
 have supposed that it was so, and if the 
 second chapter is an obvious allegory, is 
 it reasonable to regard the first chapter 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (21) 
 
S 
 
 as prosaic fact P Both these chapters are 
 true and full of truth but not of those 
 common- place truths that the man who 
 has only attained to the development of 
 reason can appreciate. 
 
 These must be reserved for those of 
 higher and more perfect development who 
 know that man has higher faculties than 
 reason. 
 
 But the attack on Qenesis is rather 
 ancient history; it shook the faith of 
 Universities fifty years ago ; it robbed 
 many of the middle class of their mental 
 peace twenty -five years ago and now it 
 is only pernicious in that it is material 
 for public-house theologians to shake with 
 their blasphemies the faith of the ignorant 
 artisan. 
 
 cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (22) 
 
Evolution is used in another way as 
 an argument against religion, and especi- 
 ally by Professor f/cec&e/, and the ar- 
 gument runs thus, you can draw no line 
 between man and beast ; the one has 
 developed from the other, and, therefore, 
 all you postulate for man you must grant 
 for man's relations, the apes, and man's 
 ancestors, the fishes, and the founder of 
 man's family, the protozoon or cell 
 animal. 
 
 Therefore, if you speak of yourself as 
 having a soul you must not refuse it to 
 your Simian relations or even doubt its 
 existence in the cells of some putrescent 
 fungus that you cast away with loathing. 
 
 We might answer at once that the fact 
 that man is peculiar in his possession of 
 
 ^cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (23) 
 
reason renders it probable that he is 
 peculiar in other matters. But roe must 
 reserve this question till later. 
 
 There is a third attack which the 
 evolutionist marks on religion. He 
 claims to have made the belief in a per- 
 sonal Qod unnecessary because his theory 
 explains nearly everything. 
 
 From three converging lines of reason- 
 ing he shews that all life, from the fungus 
 to the man, has its origin in the cell. 
 
 First he shews from the history of the 
 world as it is written in letters of stone 
 in the fossil remains of ancient life, that 
 life has slowly developed from the lower 
 to the higher forms of being. 
 
 Secondly he shews that the study of 
 existing life brings the same result. It 
 
 ^cience and 
 'Religion 
 
 (24) 
 
has in its many forms but one origin, 
 namely, the cell. For instance, the 
 origin of a plant is a seed, and the origin 
 of a seed is a pollen grain and the little 
 ovule at the base of the pistil, and that 
 the living portion both of the pollen and 
 the ovule is a cell a cell which multi- 
 plies and develops into the seed as the seed 
 does into the tree. What is true of plants 
 is true of animals and fungi, they all 
 begin in the cell. 
 
 Thirdly the Biologist shews that there 
 are in the world around us many living 
 things in states of development which the 
 fossils shew us were once common on this 
 earth, and that many forms of life seem 
 to have stuck n '^e rungs of the upward 
 ladder, and these, like the poor relations 
 
 'crence and 
 Religion 
 
 (25) 
 
of a millionaire, may serve to remind us 
 of our once humble origin, and thai we 
 must own as cousins all forms of life, for 
 mans development can be traced stage 
 by stage back to the simple cell. The 
 cell is our ancestor and the living world 
 our kinsfolk- 
 
 So the biologist claims to have a right 
 to speak with certainty as to the stages of 
 development through which roe have 
 passed. His three witnesses Geology, 
 Embryology, and Phytogeny tell the 
 same story, man descends from the cell. 
 
 Having therefore explained the steps 
 by which man was created, the evolu- 
 tionist proceeds to make the unwarrant- 
 able assumption that if you can trace the 
 history you know the cause, jlnd. 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (26) 
 
therefore, he is ready to explain the cause 
 of all the wonders of animal and veget- 
 able life. A personal God, he says, is 
 unnecessary to explain creation. "It is 
 a very simple thing," he says, "it is 
 only the result of an infinite power of 
 variation restrained and fashioned by the 
 survival of the fittest." But to speak of 
 an "infinite power of variation" is to 
 postulate rather than explain the cause 
 for it leaves altogether unexplained the 
 origin of this power, while "survival of 
 the fittest " means merely that this power 
 was so great that what We find so won- 
 derful in plant and animal are but 
 remnants of the work of this mighty 
 power. 
 
 the difficulties of the evolutionist 
 
 Science and 
 Religion 
 
 (27) 
 
do not end there. He has offered no 
 explanation of the force that created the 
 cell 
 
 Consider for a moment what a won- 
 derful being is this cell. It can barely 
 be distinguished with a highly-powered 
 microscope, yet it contains in its little body 
 infinite possibilities. It may be about to 
 multiply and then develop into one of the 
 lowest fungi. It may be the beginning 
 of some forest tree. It may be the first 
 separate life of some human being whose 
 mighty intellect will enchain the forces of 
 nature and alter the face of this very 
 world. Remember all these cells are the 
 descendant of the original cell and that 
 therefore in that cell was the possibility 
 of all these developments. Can mind 
 
 ] cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (28) 
 
conceive anything so absolutely marvel- 
 lous as that original cell holding in its 
 simple, tiny body so many and such mar- 
 vellous possibilities. 
 
 ^he belief in the origin of all life 
 being a cell, so far from making Crea- 
 tion a simple matter, makes it far more 
 wonderful, for We have to believe in a 
 being of whom our fore-fathers knew 
 nothing. jJ being, the origin of every 
 individual and of all living beings. 
 
 A being that not only has infinite 
 power of multiplication but a stupendous 
 memory, which will allow it to educate 
 and teach its many children their position 
 in the conglomerations it is about to form. 
 A being capable of education after mil- 
 lions of years of schooling, yet stupid at 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (29) 
 
first. Otherwise, had it originally the many 
 powers it now possesses instead of being 
 contented to live in isolation as a humble 
 protozoon, it would have immediately 
 formed one of those specialised agglo- 
 merations which we call plants and 
 animals. 5Y\>, it learnt by experience 
 and now contains in its little but highly 
 educated body the whole possibility of the 
 animal or plant of which it is the origin. 
 
 Surely this faith in a cell makes the 
 faith in a personal Creator more neces- 
 sary for who formed this most marvel- 
 lous being P 
 
 ^Uhe deeper the researches of science 
 the more marvellous becomes Creation, 
 and the more does it point out a marvel- 
 lous Creator. 
 
 rcience and 
 Religion 
 
 (30) 
 
Yes, the results of science may, in 
 many things, be uncertain. 
 
 JXCuch must be accepted provisionally, 
 for science has too often shewn that the 
 accepted theory of one generation may 
 be the object of contempt to generations 
 that follow. 
 
 fBut one thing seems to be made more 
 certain by every succeeding generation and 
 that is that this world and we who form 
 part of this world are fearfully and won- 
 derfully made, and science is ever at- 
 taching a fuller meaning to the words of 
 the psalmist, "Marvellous are Thy 
 works." 
 
 ] cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (31) 
 
"For many are called, but few are chosen/' 
 
 St. Matthew xx., 16. 
 
AST Friday we spoke 
 about evolution, or the 
 law of growth the 
 rolling out that is what 
 it means, of the created 
 world till it is fashioned as we see it now. 
 We noticed, it is especially important to 
 remember, that every form of life had 
 practically the same origin, namely, the 
 cell. *Che cell is the parent, not only of 
 man but of the lowest forms of life, such 
 as fungi and bacteria. This rolling out 
 from the cell can be traced as a continu- 
 ous process through all the geological 
 periods of this earth from the time when 
 life first appeared to the present day, and 
 
 ^cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (35) 
 
it can be equally traced in the growth of 
 each individual man, for he individually 
 passes through each stage which the fossil 
 world shows us to have existed from 
 the cell to the perfect creation. 
 
 The subject on which I want to speak 
 to you to-day is the cause of that 
 evolution. I will not, so far, thrust my- 
 self into a scientific controversy as to say 
 that it is the only cause, but one of the 
 chief causes of evolution is universally 
 allowed to be "selection" It is often 
 called "natural" selection. I prefer to 
 leave out the word "natural." I do not 
 know whether I have any clear definition 
 in my mind as to what "nature" means. 
 I will therefore only take that word 
 "selection." You must not think that 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (36) 
 
that word "selection" is in any way 
 opposed to Christianity. In fact, it is 
 the Christian doctrine, only with a little 
 change. Christians believe in Election, 
 scientific men believe in Selection. The 
 idea in both cases is the same that it 
 pleases Almighty Qod, in the many germs 
 of life that He creates, to select only those 
 that are suited for the purpose for which 
 they are created, or, to put it in a scien- 
 tific phrase that are suitable to their 
 environment. This principle can also be 
 seen in spiritual work, you will find it is 
 taught us in the parable which precedes 
 my text " Many are called but few are 
 chosen." Our Lord is warning the 
 Pharisees of this same spiritual law, 
 "A certain fang made a marriage for his 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (37) 
 
son " ; first he offers to many people the 
 right of coming to that marriage, but 
 they are unworthy. For one reason or 
 another, they are not suited to their 
 environment ; they do not rise to the 
 occasion ; and, therefore, the offer is 
 refused by them, and the privilege or in- 
 vitation is transferred to others. Our 
 Lord's teaching in this parable was that 
 though the offer was made to Jewish 
 people, yet it was within Qod's power to 
 select others, "$Xany are called" 
 many people were to be called, but only 
 certain people were to be chosen. And 
 the selection goes on further, because it 
 was found that of those that appeared 
 some were not worthy of their calling. 
 We are told thai there came into that 
 
 f c/ence and 
 Religion 
 
 (38) 
 
feast someone who had not on the mar- 
 riage garment and that he was cast out. 
 Vhus our Lord teaches His disciples to 
 expect that even among their own num- 
 ber the same law will prevail some will 
 be selected and some will be rejected. 
 %Cany are called yes but few are 
 chosen. 
 
 You will find the counterpart of this 
 teaching in the great facts which scien- 
 tific research has brought to light. In 
 fact, science affords many object lessons on 
 this great truth. Study, for instance, the 
 coal period ; you will find that in that 
 period there was a great and extensive 
 flora, ^here were plants of all kinds 
 and descriptions, nearly all of which 
 have perished and only a few of which 
 
 5cience'aud 
 Religion 
 
 (39) 
 
have survived because they were able to 
 develop to change with the changing 
 conditions of the world. There are in- 
 deed a few forms which have practically 
 undergone no change, such as equisitales 
 or horse tail ; but most of the flora, as 
 We see it now, has been developed from 
 that of the carboniferous period by selec- 
 tion. This means that the most suitable 
 form has been "selected" and preserved. 
 The rest have been destroyed. Thus we 
 may say of the flowers of the field, 
 many are called few chosen ; and what 
 is true of plants is true also of animals. 
 Many types of life have existed and have 
 left their traces on this earth, as we learnt 
 last Friday, but of those many forms but 
 few now remain. You see it is always 
 
 'crence and 
 Tleligion 
 
 (40) 
 
the same truth, it is only the few who are 
 chosen. 
 
 And of those that remain, the most per- 
 fect and wonderful is Man, Homo 
 Sapiens. He owes his preservation to 
 his perfection. He is the one being 
 chosen to dominate the rest of creation. 
 Jill other types of the higher apes, for 
 instance, have disappeared, or are fast 
 disappearing before Man. Yes, it is 
 gratifying to our pride to remember that 
 we are, physically speaking, the "elect" 
 or the selected few out of many types ; but, 
 at the same time, this doctrine brings 
 With it a great responsibility. 
 
 Selection did not stop when man had 
 been evolved; we must not regard evolu- 
 tion and selection as the conditions of only 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (41) 
 
the lower orders of creation, *Che races 
 of mankind are subject to the same law, 
 the lower are constantly disappearing 
 through a variety of causes, the higher 
 and the more perfect are being gradually 
 selected for preservation. 
 
 We, too, as a nation, are subject to the 
 same law. If we are worthy we shall be 
 selected and preserved, but if we are 
 found wanting we, too, must disappear. 
 
 c JT/i/s is but an obvious truth, an un- 
 doubted, scientific fact, but it would be 
 well if we in England would remember 
 that we, like everything else in this world, 
 are on our trial, and that the words 
 "mam/ are called but few are chosen " 
 should ever be ringing as a warning in 
 our ears. 
 
 *cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (42) 
 
// we have been made by this law of 
 selection, we still live under its rule. 
 
 Vhose nations who are not fitted for 
 their environment must follow the fossil 
 flora of the coal period and the anthro- 
 poid apes into being things that have not 
 been selected for preservation. 
 
 History, indeed, takes up the lesson of 
 scripture where the biologist lays it down. 
 Among nations, as among types of life, 
 the same truth holds good, many are called 
 but few are chosen. 
 
 If you turn over the leaves of your 
 history book very quickly dipping in 
 every now and then, you realize how con- 
 stantly this principle has been at Work, 
 and as you pass the centuries in rapid 
 review you see nation after nation called 
 
 rcience and 
 ^eligion 
 
 (43) 
 
to the burden of empire only to fail under 
 that burden. Qod chose them to guide 
 and lead their fellow man ; but they 
 have not done so, they were not "suited" 
 to their environment, and, therefore, they 
 have been destroyed. I need not recall 
 to you the number of those nations which 
 have been destroyed, I need not remind 
 you that we who speak about our Empire 
 now are only one of many that have once 
 been, and who have found the weight 
 of Empire too heavy for them and who, 
 because they were not suited to their en- 
 vironments, had not power to continue. 
 Can we not see signs of a like failure in 
 our nation P Let me gi\>e an example. 
 
 I see in the paper to-day that the 
 population of our Empire is four hundred 
 
 'cr'ence and 
 Religion 
 
 (44) 
 
millions about one-fifth of the entire 
 globe ! I think that the number of elec- 
 tors is seven millions. If you consider 
 these figures if you pick out the seven 
 millions who ru/e, and picture in your 
 mind seven men ruling ever four hun- 
 dred men, you will realize what a respon- 
 sibility to act justly and carefully attaches 
 to all those who have the franchise. T)oyou 
 think these seven all try to govern justly ? 
 I am afraid I have detected too often that 
 many do not even think the franchise, 
 on the proper use of which the well-being 
 of thousands of subject races depends, is 
 a matter of duty it seems, at best, a 
 privilege, sometimes only a game and 
 some even shamelessly say that they in- 
 tend to use their votes not for the benefit 
 
 ] cience and 
 Tleligion 
 
 (45) 
 
of the community but for their own bene- 
 fit. If that spirit is common, the history 
 of the English Empire will follow the his- 
 tory of other empires it will be found 
 unworthy of its environment and unfitted 
 for its great calling. These seven millions 
 who use their mighty power to enrich 
 themselves and to serve their own interests, 
 will never be able to eep an empire 
 together. Jin empire, like all other 
 human institutions, rests in the end on 
 the great principles of human government, 
 and among those principles one of the 
 greatest is that of justice. Can those 
 men who only seek their own interest have 
 at heart true justice and the real welfare 
 and glory of their country or their 
 fellow-men ? I do not think that it needs 
 
 ^cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (46) 
 
a prophet to say that unless this spirit of 
 self-seeking cease among us, we shall 
 follow in the path that Egypt, Babylon, 
 Rome, and Spain have trod, and Qod 
 will call others to the task of ruling this 
 world. 
 
 Yes the thought of selection makes 
 one very prudent in one's speech about 
 the greatness of England England is 
 called to rule over one-fifth of the inhabi- 
 tants of the world. Can we say that she 
 is chosen P She is on her trial. 
 
 Let me point out another example of 
 this selection an aspect of this question 
 which is very important for us to con- 
 sider at the present moment. You can 
 only rule a great Empire if you can pro- 
 duce the men who are capable of wisely 
 
 rcience and 
 Religion 
 
 (47) 
 
and equitably ruling it. It is an un- 
 doubted fact that the birth-rate is falling 
 very fast, especially among those classes 
 that produce the people who organize and 
 govern the State ; that though the fall in 
 the birth-rate is very universal, yet it is 
 more marked among the better class than 
 among any other. 
 
 5Yoz, / ask ^"> '/ n>e do not produce 
 men able to rule, how is the English Empire 
 to continue? Government is merely a ques- 
 tion of men. Those who form the officials 
 and governors, those who command our 
 Navy and Army in other words, those 
 upon whom the task f empire falls 
 these must be bred and nurtured, and if 
 they are not, why, as they grow fewer, 
 England must grow weaker, and when 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (48) 
 
they fail, England too must fail. I Jo 
 not think that I say anything untrue 
 when I say that the reason why the birth- 
 rate falls is because everybody loves com- 
 fort and luxury. IVe cannot afford to 
 have children because we spend so much 
 on comfort and luxury. IVe love plea- 
 sure so much that the natural love of 
 children is destroyed. Cowardice on the 
 field of battle, folly in the council cham- 
 ber, are not so disastrous to an empire at 
 the selfishness which refuses to bear the 
 children that are necessary to make 
 and teach an empire. 
 
 Will Qod select the nation who is 90 
 selfish and so unworthy of its own call* 
 ing? It is the old story of the old 
 Roman empire. Romans easily dominated 
 
 r c/ence and 
 Religion 
 
 (49) 
 
the world but they were conquered by 
 their own luxury and selfishness be- 
 cause there were no more Romans left 
 who were competent and equitable enough 
 to guide and govern their great empire, 
 T^ome fell 
 
 Let us, in conclusion, turn once 
 more back to our own spiritual lives. 
 If there is a world to come and who 
 can doubt that Qod has created us for 
 some greater purpose than to live in this 
 World why do we doubt that in that 
 world there will also be a selection P In this 
 world many are called, but, in the world 
 to come, few are chosen. 
 
 ^Che great principle which moved Qod 
 to create this world moved Him also 
 in the creation of our souls. 
 
 ] cience and 
 lion 
 
are created ; but how many will be found 
 suitable for their future environment 
 how many will not be able to sing the 
 praises of Almighty Qod? Those men 
 will ha\>e no beauty, no life, no love, no 
 honour, nothing that can adorn the 
 heavens ; like the flora of fossil periods, 
 like the empires that have vanished 
 these will all perish because they will 
 not do God's will ! Yes, they must perish. 
 It is only the fittest that must remain. It 
 is only these souls that shall accomplish 
 the great purpose for which they rvere 
 created the praise and honour ofQod 
 who shall be selected to remain to 
 Eternity. 
 
 Science] ai 
 T^eligl 
 
 and 
 ion 
 
 (51) 
 
, faith is the assurance of things 
 hoped for." 
 
 Htbrevsxi., /. 
 
ITHOUT attempting to 
 give a lecture on what 
 is called phytogeny, I 
 may remind you of some 
 of those general facts, 
 which, at any rate, the evolutionist regards 
 as beyond controversy, and which demon- 
 strate that the growth of the powers of 
 perception of man, both physical and 
 mental, was like all else in this world, of 
 very gradual growth, and that living 
 matter only gradually became conscious 
 of those great facts which surround us. 
 
 Light, sound, smell, weight, heat, al- 
 ways existed long before our protist ances- 
 tors drifted without thought, movement 
 
 'cience aud 
 Religion 
 
 (55) 
 
or sensation in the primeval seas. 
 Light shone, the sun gave heat, the thun- 
 der shook the mountains with its roar, the 
 sea grew hot in summer, but our ances- 
 tors Were unconscious of all the wonders 
 that were in existence around them, and 
 that largely and directly influenced their 
 life's history. 
 
 Our scientific instructors teach us that 
 his state of ignorance was but slowly en- 
 lightened. The cell Without sensation 
 developed into a series of cells which 
 possessed, in some sort or kind, a fcnoi*- 
 ledge of the very simple facts that the 
 outside world existed. They grew and 
 developed till they were animals clothed 
 with vibrating hairs whose very vibrations 
 shewed that they were sensible, at any 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (56) 
 
rate, of the weight of the water in which 
 they swum in aimless paths. 
 
 *Uhen our mentors tell us that our 
 fathers, advancing towards perfection, 
 attained the humble rank of worms. Yes, 
 it is good for us perhaps to realize the 
 full humility of our origin as disclosed by 
 science. *Chese worms were not then 
 the despised creature, the synonym for 
 that which is lowly and contemptible, 
 that they are now. ^hey were then the 
 highest form of development to which life 
 had attained, for they possessed, among 
 other advantages, the perception of one 
 great fact of Creation, namely, that light 
 shone. 'Perhaps, too, they may have 
 known of the existence of sound, though, 
 of course, the word "know" is in itself 
 
 f c/ence and 
 Religion 
 
 (57) 
 
S 
 
 an anachronism, for knowledge they had 
 none in its truest sense, ^heyfelt light 
 and sound, that Was all. 
 
 Our patient teachers have so far dis- 
 entangled the tangled skein of life as to 
 feel assured that the next advance was to 
 the state of fishes. Beings with imperfect 
 eyes, and with ears which, though unable 
 to distinguish musical sounds, would serve 
 to warn their owners of the approach of 
 dangers. fBut, as fishes, our ancestors 
 had no need of very perfect eyes, for they 
 could not have seen very clearly in the 
 dim light of water. 
 
 It was only when the perfecting of 
 the breathing apparatus allowed fishes to 
 crawl on land and become reptiles that 
 the eye and ear had opportunity of 
 
 cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (58) 
 
advancing towards their present perfec- 
 tion. As reptiles, perhaps, we may say that 
 our nature first awoke to the very dim- 
 mest conception of those facts which are 
 not perceived with the outward senses 
 but with that more important inward 
 sense which we call intelligence, ^hat 
 power of reasoning and deduction which, 
 in its perfection, is the true characteristic 
 of man. 
 
 It is as hard to say when first the light 
 of this great gift dawned on creation as 
 it is to say of some morning when first 
 the beams of daylight can be perceived. 
 In both cases the advance is so gradual 
 as to defy any definition of its inception. 
 Therefore, but without committing our- 
 ehes to the statement that reptiles think, 
 
 rcience and 
 Religion 
 
 (59) 
 
we can, with some assurance, be con- 
 fident that in the next step of our genea- 
 logical tree t namely, when our forefathers 
 had the form and condition of Opossum- 
 like animals, they had that mental sense 
 which enables the possessor to act with 
 design and to make use of that deduction 
 which we call thought. 
 
 The next group of ancestors whose 
 similarity to us is most marked has this 
 gift well- developed. The man-like apes, 
 from whom we draw our immediate 
 parentage, can think ; they can make a 
 deduction, and, therefore, we may per- 
 haps say of them that they have the 
 sense of truth. They nou) if a simple 
 deduction is unreal, you can tease them 
 by arising in their minds an expectation 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (60) 
 
of pleasure only to refuse its gratification 
 and they can deduce that this form of 
 tyranny is best met by active measures of 
 resistance, and, therefore, they bite and 
 scratch their tormentor, and find that 
 their deduction is sound and that they 
 have attained to the knowledge of this 
 great truth, that man can be moved by 
 fear from doing that which is unpleasant 
 to them. Yet their intelligence compared 
 to even the lowest of mankind is most 
 inferior, ^o mankind alone belongs 
 this gift in its fuller development, and it 
 is by this sense of reason, of truth, which 
 go to make up intelligence that even the 
 most savage man can dominate and slay 
 other beings larger, stronger, and better- 
 armed than he is himself. 
 
 ] cienceand 
 Religion 
 
 <6t) 
 
*Uhusfar in the gradual history of the 
 development of man s senses, of his facul- 
 ties of perception, have n?e travelled in 
 company with our scientific mentor, but 
 here, alas, roe must part company. For 
 to him, the acquisition of intelligence 
 is the apex of development beyond 
 which no man can travel. He holds 
 that man having possessed himself of this 
 gift must sit down and gloomily contem- 
 plate the few short years of his life 
 in this gloomy world, for, according to this 
 narrow faith, all that exceeds intelligence 
 is unreal. Jill love of beauty, culture, 
 and religion are but forms of mental dis- 
 ease or of intellectual decadence. 
 
 ^he lesson of the gradual develop- 
 ment of the senses ; the gradual history 
 
 'cr'ence and 
 Religion 
 
 (62) 
 
of the development of the very faculties 
 on which he prides himself are lost to him. 
 He is for ever asserting " I can only know 
 what my intelligence can know, and all 
 that reason tells me is this, that this world 
 is the result of blind chance/' and if 
 pride would let him speak he should add 
 "I have the ill-luck to be so perfectly 
 developed that I can realize what is hidden 
 from my father, the Ape, and my grand- 
 father the Opossum, that in this world 
 death and probably suffering is my cer- 
 tain fate." 
 
 Yet one would have thought that very 
 gift of reason would have helped our 
 scientific sufferer, for if the knowledge of 
 light and sound and heat and weight 
 came but gradually to living beings ; if 
 
 *cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (63) 
 
truths, whose existence those senses 
 shewed, only came to knowledge when 
 man had perfected the gradually develop- 
 ing power of reason, does not that very 
 reason teach us to consider whether we 
 have any other senses which are but slowly 
 unfolding other mysteries of this life 
 hitherto hidden from man's gaze. 
 
 Is there not a distinct sense of the 
 beautiful for instance, a sense that the 
 savage man has but scarcely and which 
 in the civilised man makes culture real ; 
 that just as our worm ancestors found 
 themselves in possession of a sense which 
 enabled them to realize and use the light 
 that had always shone on this world of 
 ours, so we are gradually realizing that 
 the beautiful is all round us, that though 
 
 'crence and 
 Religion 
 
 (64) 
 
u>e may not have appreciated it in our 
 more savage state, it was always there, 
 and that man has no more created the 
 beautiful by his realization than the worm 
 or the fish made light. 
 
 Vhus far we have had the society of 
 all men of culture and thought, who 
 despise the narrow reasoning that would 
 mak^ love of beauty a disease or appre- 
 ciation of music a deformity. 
 
 Vhe last stage we believers must 
 travel alone, yet the road is so straight 
 that one wonders that any can halt in the 
 onward path. 
 
 If civilised man has developed a sense 
 of the beautiful which raises him as far 
 higher than the savage man as the savage 
 is higher than the ape, religious man has 
 
 Science and 
 (Religion 
 
 (65) 
 
realized another sense which raises him 
 yet higher still a sense of moral truth, a 
 sense of moral beauty, a sense which is so 
 far higher than the other senses of man 
 that it cannot be described by any words 
 coined to express those ideas but must 
 have its own distinct word namely, 
 faith. 
 
 I do not say that all have faith or all 
 have it in equal measure ; in man's other 
 faculties there are great inequalities one 
 can see well, another is blind one can 
 hear well, another is deaf one can 
 reason, another is weak-minded and so 
 it is With faith, to some it is so strong that 
 they describe it as a voice that speaks; so 
 it was to the Hebrew prophets, to others 
 it is only an inclination, a sense of fitness. 
 
 ] cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (66) 
 
Jlnd this sense of faith tells man the 
 mysteries of this world. It is well des- 
 cribed as Spiritual light, for, 6p it, what 
 was dark becomes clear, what was sad 
 becomes bright. 
 
 *Che man whose development has 
 stopped short at reason cannot, of course, 
 appreciate its power. 
 
 One can imagine if our ancestors, the 
 worms, could have discussed the lately 
 developed eye that some tribes of them 
 possessed, with what scorn the blind would 
 have denied the existence of that light 
 which was so obvious to the other ; how 
 they would have declared that, beyond 
 heat and weight, no sensation is possible. 
 
 So now the sense of faith is scorned 
 by those who have it not, and the spiritual 
 
 s 
 
 cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (67) 
 
light which has guided the many and 
 diverse Christian nations into a civilisa- 
 tion far nobler and happier than any 
 that has preceded it, is unperceived and 
 the very existence of that civilisation is to 
 the unbeliever one of those many riddles to 
 whose solution he can only offer that 
 meaningless and depressing phrase 
 blind chance. 
 
 s 
 
 cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (68) 
 
IV. 
 
 ttC Che fool hath said in his heart, ^here is 
 
 no Go</."-~ 
 
 xto. t /. 
 
|AST time we dwelt on 
 the gradual evolution 
 of man's powers of per- 
 ception. How first in 
 his earliest ancestors, 
 the protozon, the sensation of weight 
 was developed, and how his Wormlike fore- 
 fathers increased this narrow domain of 
 knowledge by adding a rudimentary sense 
 of sight and hearing, and I think I may 
 add smell. </Jnd then we thought of 
 our fish ancestors and our reptile ances- 
 tors completing these senses, and that the 
 latter began to add to these that great 
 power of mental perception which we 
 call intelligence, the production of reason, 
 
 'cience aud 
 Religion 
 
 (71) 
 
s 
 
 that reason which our opossum forebears, 
 and our ape grandfathers so far perfec- 
 ted that our immediate father, the primi- 
 tive man, was ready to pass down to 
 ourselves, members of the genus homo 
 sapiens, a perfect measure of this inesti- 
 mable gift. 
 
 We further thought of the subsequent 
 development of the sense of beauty and 
 the sense of faith which are the two 
 greatest powers of the perception, and 
 are the especial attributes of the cultured 
 and the religious man. 
 
 &ow I want to put before you the 
 reason of these developments, and to 
 shew you that they all depend on this one 
 great principle that this world is one in 
 which Qod's creation is being gradually 
 
 cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (72) 
 
perfected. I suppose my scientific friends 
 Would be annoyed by such an unscien- 
 tific phrase, but really it differs in sub- 
 stance but little from one that is ever 
 on their mouths , namely <( the survival of 
 the fittest," excepting in this that we 
 Christians see in this upward trend a 
 strong evidence of benificent and beauti- 
 ful being, while they are content to con- 
 fess that 3\Cature tends to perfect fitness, 
 and yet this tendency is but the result of 
 blind chance. 
 
 Let us, however, use the scientific 
 phrase the powers of perception were 
 one of the causes, one of the principal 
 causes why certain types survived, that 
 for instance the happy possessor of an 
 eye when all the world was blind had an 
 
 ^cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (73) 
 
obvious advantage in the race of life, or 
 again the first gleams of intelligence that 
 illumined the reptile or opossums 1 soul 
 must have given him a marked advantage 
 over his mechanically minded brother. 
 Thus every power of perception, mental 
 or physical, was preserved to be further 
 perfected because the possessors of these 
 qualifications were superior to their neigh- 
 bours in the struggle for life. This fact 
 has been most marked in the survival and 
 supremacy of our own genus. We who 
 possess reason in its excellence are by 
 that gift enabled to survive in the war 
 of this life against adversaries far better 
 armed than ourselves, such as the lion 
 or the wolf. We see with our mental 
 eye what is hidden from them, and thus 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (74) 
 
we can both avoid hidden dangers and 
 make weapons of defence which turn 
 our weakness into strength. 
 
 The first man who had the intelligence 
 to make a stone axe and therewith to 
 crack the head of a wolf that tried to 
 kill him was infinitely superior to his 
 brawny gorilla cousins t though they had 
 far greater physical strength. 
 
 Treason gave men the supremacy yet 
 that supremacy would have been far from 
 complete if the development of man had 
 stopped at reason, for reason shows to 
 man but a part of the great truths of this 
 world, and part of a truth differs little 
 from a falsity. 
 
 Jill that reason can tell a man is that 
 which concerns his own self interest. 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (75) 
 
Treason says if you Jo this or that you 
 Will be happier, you will have more to 
 eat t or you will be warmer, or safer ; so 
 reason tends to preserve the individual 
 while it equally destroys the tribe society. 
 For the same sense that teaches an indi- 
 vidual to preserve his own life teaches 
 him to subordinate the interest of the race 
 to his personal advantage, and the more 
 reason is developed the less man is in- 
 clined to that self -sacrifice on which the 
 existence of the race depends. 
 
 Ao doubt when the stone man had 
 slaughtered the wolf he proceeded to use 
 the same stone axe as a means of domi- 
 nating and enslaving his neighbour ; for 
 the same sense that told him to tie a sharp 
 stone to a stick would also tell him to use 
 
 'crence and 
 Religion 
 
 (76) 
 
that weapon as a means of securing food 
 and warmth without trouble or exertion 
 by attacking and subjugating his fellow 
 man. 
 
 ^aturally another stone man equally 
 endowed with reason would proceed 
 to make himself another stone axe 
 With the intention of cracking the skull 
 of the first inventor. jJnd thus would 
 arise a state of war the direct result of 
 reason. The only exceptions in this war 
 would be the man's own wife and child- 
 ren to whom he was tied f not by reason, 
 but by the bonds of natural affection. 
 Thus if man's development had been cut 
 short at reason, had he no further powers, 
 mankind Would have consisted of warring 
 families or sects, and man's supremacy 
 
 cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (77) 
 
over the other occupants of this world 
 would be mitigated by his generic ten- 
 dency to race destruction. jJnd indeed 
 this is a state of which we have evidence 
 both in the lowest types of man now 
 existing, and from historic remains show- 
 ing that this was the universal condition 
 of mankind. 
 
 $ut men developed another faculty, 
 the sense of religion ; this like the sense 
 of reason, and like the sense of sight was 
 but dim at first, for it showed man but a 
 faint outline of a great truth, but that 
 vision enabled those that saw it to survive. 
 
 It showed him that this world was not 
 the only world, and that it was not suffi- 
 cient merely to seek your own advantage, 
 but that in the world beyond those who 
 
 f cfence and 
 Religion 
 
 (78) 
 
had done well by their neighbours and 
 their Qods would be rewarded, ^hus 
 men were no longer disposed to seek each 
 his own welfare; the believer in God, 
 even if he limited his beneficence to his 
 own tribe, stood gallantly in the fore- 
 front of the battle, and gave up his life 
 for his faith. Can you wonder that the 
 man who had reason only, failed before 
 the heroism and the power of combina- 
 tion that the man of religious sense pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 I am not for one moment saying that 
 this religion was admirable in itself. 
 Remember it was but the result of an 
 imperfectly developed power of percep- 
 tion, I do not suppose that our worm fore- 
 fathers saw the beauties of a sunset, or 
 
 'a'ence and 
 Religion 
 
 (79) 
 
that our reptile fathers understood the 
 advantage of thrift, or that our ape 
 fathers could mend a motor car, so I do 
 not think that the vision of the savage 
 Was admirable in anything but only this, 
 that it was the first rudiments of the 
 great vision which we Christians see 
 in its perfection. 
 
 In the same way, though in a lesser 
 degree, the development of the sense of 
 beauty was a necessity if man was to 
 survive, uncultured man is only happy 
 when he is eating or sleeping, and as 
 there must be a limit to these two plea- 
 sures, uncultured man raised to a state of 
 leisure by the development of civilization 
 immediately commits suicide by indulging 
 in excess. 
 
 Defence and 
 Religion 
 
 (80) 
 
We. who live in ngland have so 
 many instances in our midst of this 
 obvious truth in the numbers who every 
 year reduce themselves to misery by ex- 
 cess in drinking and eating that I will 
 not enlarge upon this pointy suffice it to 
 say that man unendowed with a sense of 
 beauty, unguided by the higher vision of 
 religion, must fail both in peace and war, 
 and that the principle of the survival of 
 the fittest will in the end secure the 
 domination of the man that is most fit to 
 live as a civilised man. I would also 
 remind you of this great well-known 
 phenomenon of natural development, 
 that from time to time certain individuals 
 will show some of the characteristics of 
 the long forgotten fore-fathers, for 
 
 Science and 
 (Religion 
 
 (81) 
 
instance, from time to time to the delight 
 of travelling showmen individuals are 
 born, clothed with hair like their ape 
 grandfathers, and so it is only to be ex- 
 pected that we should find individuals 
 gifted only with reason, and who like 
 our savage fathers are absolutely unfitted 
 to live in a community, the very existence 
 of which demands the self-sacrifice that 
 mere reason condemns. 
 
 ^hese individuals acting only at the 
 instigation of reason act selfishly, and 
 are the sources of those wars and revo- 
 lutions which still defile man's dominion. 
 It was very full of meaning that the set- 
 ting up of a temple to the Goddess of 
 Treason inlFrance was the prelude of that 
 reign of terror, and those Napoleonic 
 
 'crence and 
 Religion 
 
 (82) 
 
wars which must have destroyed a large 
 part of the manhood of that country. 
 It is also most important to note that 
 those individuals as we observed last 
 fortnight who are most devoid of religion 
 and most addicted to selfishness have as 
 a direct result of this hypertrophy of 
 reason the fewest children. 
 
 ^he same causes are still at work- 
 The same force that created man is now 
 perfecting His creation. 
 
 The blind creatures of reason are 
 committing race suicide, they are raising 
 up war and bloodshed. They are tea- 
 chers of cowardice and self -indulgence, and 
 in the end they must yield to and disap- 
 pear before the race who, lighted by the 
 heavenly vision, sees truth in all its 
 
 f c rence and 
 Religion 
 
 (83) 
 
beauty, and spurred on by that beautiful 
 vision to self-denial and self-surrender, 
 is prepared to act as one solid mass in 
 promotion of the purpose of their Crea- 
 tor. I do not soy that we have reached 
 that point when the causes of destruction 
 and preservation are sufficiently separated 
 to secure their perfect action. To a great 
 extent the}) neutralise one another, ^he 
 selfish man, the man who has no spiritual 
 vision, and who acts merely at the sugges- 
 tion of his reason is to be found professing 
 a Christ he neither understands nor obeys, 
 and conversely those who hate selfishness 
 and its concomitant falseness and cruelty 
 are often found opposed to the travesty 
 of the religion of Christ with which they 
 are alone acquainted and professing a 
 
 cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (84) 
 
belief in reason which (if Teal) Would 
 condemn their lofty aims and noble 
 actions as folly. 
 
 *JT/H3 world is a world of confusion 
 because it is a world in which a great 
 struggle is taking place between the 
 things that make for the preservation of 
 a race and the things that make for its 
 destruction, but gradually , if slowly, the 
 great principle of survival of the fittest 
 must make itself felt and the race that 
 believes only and really in reason must 
 become selfish and disappear, while the 
 race that believes in a heavenly vision 
 and therefore regards selfishness as 
 folly, and self-sacrifice as wisdom must 
 survive. 
 
 Shakespeare in one of his greatest 
 
 s 
 
 cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (85) 
 
moments of inspiration has left us the 
 portrait of the man who was absolutely 
 destitute of any higher vision, who 
 reasoned without any illusion t Sir John 
 Falstaff. 
 
 5\o real man, no living man has ever 
 attained to such a splendid isolation of 
 the sole quality of reason. 
 
 Jill the professors of reason cherish 
 some beautiful remnants of unreason 
 which save them from this abyss. He 
 drinks, he whores, he is a coward because 
 reason tells him by these means he 
 secures to himself in this world the 
 greatest happiness. 
 
 Remember the passage when he 
 applies that lucidity of reason to the 
 dream of the feudal age "honour," and 
 
 *cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (86) 
 
sums up and condemns this conception 
 of unreason in this phrase, " What is 
 honour ?!</! word." 
 
 All professors of reason that I have 
 met with have never reached this abyss of 
 cynicism, they have always cherished 
 some remnant of unreason which has 
 either made them act unselfishly or at 
 least has helped them to a noble thought. 
 They may not believe they owe God 
 a duty, but they believe they owe 
 Humanity, with a capital H, or the 
 *People, with a capital *P, a duty. They 
 despise Faith but they believe in a 
 "sense of truth " or in a tf moral sense." 
 Yet all these things presuppose something 
 beyond and above reason. 
 
 Faith in the Cross of Christ is the 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (87) 
 
perfection of the heavenly vision for it at 
 once gives the highest conception of self" 
 sacrifice and the simplest explanation of 
 its necessity. 
 
 When Christianity first became a 
 national religion and the future fimperor 
 Constantine was doubtful as to whether he 
 Would accept it, he saw in the sky a fiery 
 cross and round that cross the motto, " With 
 this standard you shall conquer." 'Uhis 
 vision, surely, had a deeper meaning than 
 that the Roman Eagle should give way 
 to the sign of the Cross. 
 
 It meant that the nation or people who 
 would really accept the Cross of Jesus as 
 their standard and ideal, who would live 
 the life of sacrifice and self -surrender, 
 that the Cross that bore our Sacred Lord 
 
 ] cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (88) 
 
typified, must conquer because that self- 
 sacrifice, that heavenly love would weld 
 that nation in one such solid mass that no 
 known human force could withstand its 
 power. 
 
 JKCany nations have professed Chris- 
 tianity none have hitherto thoroughly 
 accepted the fulness of its teaching, and 
 therefore, the mystic words are still with- 
 out their meaning. 
 
 " In hoc signo vinces." 
 
 1 cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (59) 
 
V. 
 
 " though after my skin worms destroy this 
 body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." 
 
 Job xix., 26. 
 
NE of the bye products, 
 if I may be allowed to 
 use a commercial phrase, 
 of the hard, patient and 
 exhaustive study that 
 has been made of biology is to make the 
 immortality of the soul a thing much 
 more easy to believe than it was in the 
 days of ignorance. 
 
 I am aware that this is not the view of 
 some of our eminent biologists, but surely 
 that is from that mental short- sight which 
 so often affects people who have looked 
 closely and intently at some subject for 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (93) 
 
many .pears, they are so accustomed to 
 study detail that they lose sight of the 
 obvious results of their discoveries. In 
 the old phrase, they cannot see the wood 
 for the trees. 
 
 Let me enumerate the many things that 
 science has shewn to be eternal, and then 
 let me ask yu whether our existence 
 through eternity is not, upon scientific 
 grounds alone, most probable. 
 
 *Che world is, according to your scien- 
 tific mentors made up of two great facts ; 
 facts which have many forms but have 
 this in common, they are indestructible, 
 namely, energy and matter. 
 
 nergy can be manifested in many 
 ways; heat, light, electricity, magnetism, 
 movement, sound, but though capable of 
 
 5cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (94) 
 
being changed into one of these many 
 forms it can never be destroyed. 
 
 ^he coal you burn in your fire is the 
 result of the bygone energy of the sun, 
 which, in its turn, was developed by the 
 heat engendered by the collision of 
 two or more wandering meteors, sent on 
 their path by some unknown but most 
 real force. 
 
 When you burn that coal you do not 
 destroy the force that created it. jls 
 you warm your hands you are receiving 
 the benefit of the sun which shone on the 
 primeval forests millions of years ago, 
 and that sun did not originate the energy 
 that formed the coal ; it was merely 
 transmitted to it by his rays. It was the 
 result of the intense heat generated at his 
 
 'cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (95) 
 
formation when ten thousands of meteors 
 clashed together and changed the energy 
 that drove them thitherwards into a heat 
 so great that the ether quivered with high 
 vibrations and transmitted a small portion 
 of the energy of those rushing meteors to 
 our poor planet. A nd whence came the 
 force that drove the meteors that clashed 
 whose collision formed the sun P Were 
 they formed from a dust that floated 
 without form in space P 
 
 We may ask this and many other 
 questions after it, and science may or 
 may not be able to give us an answer, 
 but of this science is sure that the force 
 that made the coal is of eternal origin, 
 and this does not differ from theology, 
 except that one spells the word without a 
 
 J cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (96) 
 
capital, while the other, believing that the 
 Eternal has a personality, spells it as a 
 proper name. 
 
 <2Juf to return, if you burn that coal in 
 a properly constructed furnace you can 
 change the heat back into energy, and by 
 means of the steam engine make the 
 energy of those clashing meteors, which 
 has reached you through the coal formed 
 by the sun's light, serve many purposes. 
 
 It may be used to light a city or to 
 drain a marsh, to compact by some new 
 device of electrolysis some useful sub- 
 stance, to manure our fields with air, to 
 dye our clothes with tar, to make gas out 
 of lime and water and carbon ; but to 
 whatever use it is put no force is either 
 created or destroyed. Whatever form 
 
 5cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (97) 
 
man's power may compel energy to 
 one thing he cannot do, and that Is to 
 annihilate its existence. If the energy 
 that forms the coal is eternal the sub- 
 stance is equally so. The ash and gas 
 to which coals are reduced are as real 
 substances as the coal itself, and if, as 
 that gas floats in the air, it should chance 
 to pass a green leaf on which the sun is 
 shining it will be turned back into a sub- 
 stance like coal, it may be wood or one of 
 the other products of vegetation, as sugar 
 or starch. Then, to pursue the thought 
 further, it might be eaten by man and 
 after a short stay in his body, during 
 which it would give up the force of 
 which it was the vehicle, it would be 
 expelled as gas by his lungs, and so 
 
 ^cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (98) 
 
continue in that unceasing and everlasting 
 change. 
 
 jJnd so man is composed of eternal 
 things matter and energy yet some 
 doubt whether he himself is eternal. Yet 
 what is man P {Biology tells us he is 
 merely a complicated arrangement of cells 
 whose life dates back thousands of thou- 
 sands of years, who, if not eternal in 
 origin, is of such antiquity, that to the 
 human thought it seems almost infinite in 
 age. For biology insists on this that 
 there is no new creation of the individual, 
 there is merely mingling of cells and then 
 a multiplication by division. If cell life 
 is not eternal in its origin, it is eternal as 
 far as biology knows its existence. For 
 if the biologist can detect, looking 
 
 5cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (99) 
 
backward in the dim distance, a protozoan 
 beyond which his gaze cannot penetrate^ 
 and which he, therefore, concludes to be 
 the origin of life, looking forward, he can 
 see no limit, and the eternal cell may 
 divide and sub-divide to eternity pro- 
 ducing vast and complicated conglomera- 
 tions that tell each individual cell his 
 place in this infinite crowd of cells. Are 
 these eternal P Here the voice of science 
 is a little confused for she has not quite 
 defined this force, but whatever definition 
 is given of it, one thing is certain that it 
 has the possibility of eternity. 
 
 For the whole doctrine of evolution 
 depends on this, that there is no such 
 thing as spontaneous generation. The 
 biologist allows no short cuts in the long 
 
 ] cience and 
 Religion 
 
 UOO) 
 
road of evolution. His scientific creed 
 requires him to believe at any rate in this 
 one manifestation of life eternal. 
 
 Science believes in an eternal matter 
 which has no origin and no end, and 
 eternal energy that has many manifesto' 
 tions and which can be dormant and in- 
 cluded in matter but can never be created 
 and can never cease. Science also be- 
 lieves in a cell life which is compact of 
 these two eternals, and though not eternal 
 in its origin and liable to be destroyed by 
 some catastrophe yet, in its nature, is im- 
 mortal. Is it, therefore, difficult to add 
 to these two eternals and this one immor- 
 tal a belief in the immortality of indivi- 
 dual personality P 
 
 The results of a personality are similar 
 
 ] cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (ion 
 
to that of life in that they have the pos- 
 sibility of immortality. 
 
 When we speak of the immortal poet 
 or an immortal reputation, we are merely 
 testifying to obvious truth ; that as long 
 as thinking man continues the result of 
 all thought tends towards immortality. 
 We. may remember the originator of some 
 great thought which formed a step in 
 human development, or the thinker may 
 be forgotten and his thought added with- 
 out acknowledgment to the great store- 
 house of human knowledge, but the fact 
 remains the same, human thought is 
 immortal. 
 
 So it is With a good and beautiful action 
 again, its author may be remembered 
 and he may be immortal in reputation 
 
 5cience and 
 Religion 
 
 (102) 
 
or, as chiefly happens, a man's repu- 
 tation dies with him ; but the good 
 action that he has done will have raised 
 the tone of public morality; like the cell 
 life it will have multiplied in the suitable 
 environment of human society and will 
 be like life, immortal in nature, though, 
 of course, liable to be destroyed by some 
 corresponding evil action. 
 
 If good actions have the possibility of 
 immortality, do not evil actions produce, 
 like some foul fungus, a mass of living 
 evil, which decays and slays and so dis- 
 integrates human society, just as a 
 malignant bacterium or fungus by its 
 very tenacity of life, rots and ruins far 
 higher forms of life, and changes their 
 beauty into a loathly mass. Both the 
 
 'c/ence and 
 Religion 
 
 (103 
 
good and evil that a man Joes has the 
 nature of immortality both his thought 
 and action. Can we believe that this 
 personality, compacted of eternal things, 
 having within it the seed of the immortal 
 cell life, and producing immortal results, 
 both in the direction oj good and evil, 
 can we believe that this personality is 
 necessarily mortal. </! man can look 
 around him and above him, he can look 
 at his origin and at his fruit, he can 
 dwell upon his actions, his words and his 
 thoughts ; to all of these immortality is 
 possible, to some it is certain. 
 
 Can roe then turn and think of the great- 
 ness of human personality, and say this 
 is the one exception this is mortal P Or 
 can a man survey himself and the world 
 
 f c/ence and 
 Religion 
 
 (104) 
 
around, and say this world is ever chang- 
 ing, but it is compacted of things eternal 
 and inhabited by life immortal, and my 
 body is part of this world, and is a 
 sharer in its eternal things, and has 
 within it the seeds of an undying life, but 
 my personality is mortal ? I am an 
 eccentricity of creation, the one thing 
 that can be destroyed. 
 
 ] dance and 
 Religion 
 
 (105) 
 
GENERAL LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the 
 
 date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 NOV 111354 Lit 
 
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 APR 13 1956 1 
 
 
 
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