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

LIFE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT.l29scientific evidence nothing involving conflictwith r'eligious conviction; and allowance willbe made for continued and extended experiments,provided only that the " holding openthe possibility," does not make the probability" self-evident."Passing thus from the unsolved problem ofthe origin of life,-with the attendant acknowledgmentthat there is no scientific theory ofthe world's descent from primordial atoms,we advance to the testimony of science concerningdifferent orders of life, and their relationsto each other. Here there is no restrictionas to the use of scientific methods;there is wide range for free action by thehosts of observers required for the work. Asense of the relief which this implies, in contrastwith the hampering restraints surroundingthe earlier question, imparts to the wordsof Schmidt a more jubilant tone, as he says," Between beginning and end, we naturalistsmay do as we please." *In this region it will be universally admittedthat the development of species byselection is the conception which has gainedgreatest hold upon the scientific mind within* Doctrine of Descent, p. 162.