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

126 SCIENCE AND RELIGION.imagine that, should we ever penetrate thismystery, we shall thereby be enabled to produce,except from life, even the lowest form oflife." * On the other hand Professor Schmidtof Strasburg maintains the opposite view, affirmingthat "the investigation of nature doesnot shrink from enrolling life, and the processesof life in the world of the comprehensible."j-This latter assertion is not to beaccounted for on the ground that Schmidt isthe ardent admirer and defender of the theoryof origin of species by natural selection, for itis clear, as he maintains in replying to MaxMiiller, that " the origin of life has in factnothing to do with actual Darwinism, or naturalselection, unless the principle of selectionbe extended to the inorganic world of matter.77$ Mr, Darwin himself does not suggestany such extension, and his theory of speciesis not chargeable with it. It should, indeed,be clearly recognized on all hands that thenaturalist confines himself to a narrower rangeof inquiry, taking existing phases of life asthe subject of his study. Accordingly, whoeverclaims that the origin of life comes within* Recent Adtx-tnces, p. 24. f Doctrine of Descent, p. 20.$ B. p. 161.