The Relation of Science and Religion.pdf - Online Christian Library

INORGANIC ELEMENTS.l05flective and speculative exercises, which, proceedingfrom scientific conclusions as accepteddata, consider their intellectual valueas contributing towards a theory of the universe.Scientific men will, of course, moreor less readily pass over to take some sharein such philosophic speculation; just as religiousmen, purely under the impulse ofreligious interests, will be more or less disposedto do, in proportion to the range oftheir intellectual life. What is here said isnot intended as an argument for any restrictionupon such speculation on the parteither of scientific or of religious men, forsuch questions are common property, andthe arguments bearing upon them are to betested by all. But it is of some consequence,specially in the present unsettled and sensitivestate of the public mind, that it beclearly recognized that science is not itselfresponsible for the thoughts of scientific menon these questions; and that religion is notresponsible for the thoughts of religious menupon them. Science can not determine anything as to a philosophy of the supernatural,any more than religion can determine anything as to a science of nature. Whether