The Science of the Bible - Brother Hermenegild Tosf - Bog

THESE pages aim to give an honest presentation of the branches of science touched upon in the Sacred Scriptures as compared with the Sanle branches studied from a purely natural or secular standpoint. Astronomy, Optics, Geology, Biology, and Anthropology, in many portions of the Bible stand out in clear prominence, therefore these branches will form the subject matter of my comparative study. The fair Blinded reader will, I think, be convinced that no well established fact or principle of science is contradictory to any passage of the Bible properly and honestly interpreted. There is no bending of science to suit the scriptural text. The teachings of science drawn from the latest and most correct sources are put down independently of any ulterior motive. The passages of Scripture said to contradict science are then taken up, and the apparent conflict is harmonized. Science has undoubtedly made transcendent progress within recent years. This progress is due in great measure to the continual changes occasioned by the rapid frequency of new discoyeries. Indeed there is no feature of science as extraordinary as its changeableness. The science of twenty years ago is to-day almost obsolete. Every new discovery puts in hazard or greatly modifies some old favorite theory. The science text-books of our youthful days would be much more harmful than helpful in the hands of the pupils of to-day. Under such circumstances is it not strange indeed to see the arrogance with which many so-called scientists condemn everything that stands in the way of their ephemeral theories? The holiest convictions and most sacred and best established traditions of the race must vanish at the touch of these sciolists. However, it can be truthfully stated that it is only the braggadocios and tyros of science that are so presumptuous. Or to be more precise, this arrogance is but the expression of agnosticism parading in the garb of science. The great men who have done most for science are not of this temper. The Copernicuses, Newtons. Ampers, Faradays, Oersteds and Henrys were modest men. The great physicist, Clerk-Maxwell, declared towards the close of his life that all the agnostic hypotheses he had ever known need a God to make them workable. Sir William Thonlpson, professor of natural philosophy in Glasgow University, and who has probably done more for the advancement of physical science than any other living man, had this to say recently " One word characterizes the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of science that I have made perseveringly through fifty-five years; that word is failure; I know no more of electric and magnetic force, or of the relation between ether, electricity and ponderable matter, or of chemical affinity, than I knew and tried to teach tlly students of natural philosophy fifty years ago in my first session as professor." A considerable amount of space comparatively is devoted in these pages to Geology, although it would appear that only a few passages of scripture really bear upon this science. Still Geology in one of its branches, Paleontology, or the science of fossils, enters largely into Biology, Anthropology, the treatment of the questions of the Antiquity of man and the Deluge. What we know of prehistoric Biology and Anthropology we learn entirely from the study of fossils. Hence a great deal of Geology is given which may at first sight seem unnecessary, or even foreign to the subject matter under consideration. But to avoid continual reference to Geology when treating of the other sciences I thought it best to give all its results under one caption.