ict is, nor are we enabled to get a good look at either of
the parties to the strife. With regard to it "religion" especially are
we left in the dark. What this dreadful thing is towards which "science"
is always playing the part of Herakles towards the Lernaean Hydra, we
are left to gather from the course of the narrative. Yet, in a book with
any valid claim to clearsightedness, one would think such a point as
this ought to receive very explicit preliminary treatment.

The course of the narrative, however, leaves us in little doubt as to
what Dr. Draper means by a conflict between science and religion. When
he enlarges on the trite story of Galileo, and alludes to the more
modern quarrel between the Church and the geologists, and does this
in the belief that he is thereby illustrating an antagonism between
religion and science, it is obvious that he identifies the cause of
the anti-geologists and the persecutors of Galileo with the cause
of religion. The word "religion" is to him a symbol which stands for
unenlightened bigotry or narrow-minded unwillingness to look facts in
the face. Such a conception of religion is common enough, and unhappily
a great deal has been done to strengthen it by the very persons to whom
the interests of religion are presumed to be a professional care. It
is nevertheless a very superficial conception, and no book which is
vitiated by it can have much philosophic value. It is simply the crude
impression which, in minds unaccustomed to analysis, is left by the fact
that theologians and other persons interested in religion are usually
alarmed at new scientific truths, and resist them with emotions so
highly wrought that they are not only incapable of estimating evidence,
but often also have their moral sense impaired, and fight with foul
means when fair ones fail. If we reflect carefully on this class of
phenomena, we shall see that something besides mere pride of opinion is
involved in the struggle. At the bottom of changing theological beliefs
there lies something which men perennially value, and for the sake of
which they cling to the beliefs as long as possible. That which they
value is not itself a matter of belief, but it is a matter of conduct;
it is the searching after goodness,--after a higher life than the mere
satisfaction of individual desires. All animals seek for fulness
of life; but in civilized man this craving has acquired a moral
significance, and has become a spiritual aspirat