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

16 SCIENCE AND RELIGION.reasons, that all knowledge possessed by usis incomplete, and active intelligence can notrest in the incomplete. Neither science northeology can afford to dispense with hypothiesis,that is conjecture, and where conjectureis, there is a wide region for devious wandering.Conjecture means inquiry into the unknown,and this is essential to intellectual life,equally necessary for science and religion, andaccordingly diversity of opinion is inevitablein the history of both, as in the history of allforms of human activity. In every region ofhuman knowledge there is a realm of the certain,and another of the uncertain, and accordinglythere is diversity of opinion and conviction.Occasionally, in controversial writing,it is suggested that there is greater diversityof view in matters religious, than in mattersscientific; and it is implied that such diversityis a reasonable ground of reproach. Both allegationsare at fault, and the error arisesfrom want of observation, involving imperfectacquaintance with the facts. Religion as it isconcerned with the life of man himself, andis the subject of interest to all, has not onlyits common positions generally recognized, butalso many of its phases of conflicting thought.