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

182 SCIENCE AND RELIGION.ever varying conditions of life, transcend inan incomparable manner the contrivances andadaptations which the most fertile imaginationof man could invent." *In preparing the present summary of recentadvances in this department of naturalhistory, I have resorted freely to quot,ation,because of the obvious rule, that it is betterfor scientific interest, for proper understanding,and for regulation of all subsequent reasoningon the facts, that we have the observationspresented as nearly as possible by thosewho made them, and that we have more generalinferences in the very words of thosewhose minds have been filled and swayed byimpressions made in the field of observationitself. In now proceeding to consider thebearing of these advances on religious thought,I shall keep as far as possible by the samerule, desiring that science may interpret itself,and translate its own special conclusionsinto their fit place within a scheme of the universe.And whatever there may be here ofmaterial for detailed inference, it will be takenby religious men as abundantly clear, thatscience in slowly unfolding to general view* rertiliznlion. p. 285.