ous men advanced equally,
quickening its pace, too, as the particular branch of knowledge styled
'physics' spread, and, spreading, exposed the utter impossibility of
many of the fables in which theological views had been expressed.
Wherefore, theological oracles have in every age and country been apt to
confound scientific inquisitiveness with unbelief, and to denounce
_physical_ science especially as a delusion and a snare, and its
cultivators as impostors none the less mischievous for being at the same
time dupes. Of course, the latter have not been slow to return the
compliment. Hearing the truths discovered by them stigmatised as
falsehoods, they naturally enough retorted the charge of falsity against
the divine authorities in whose name it was made. Finding war waged
against them by every religion with which they were acquainted, they
naturally enough in turn declared war against all religion, even with
that form thereof which underlies every other except when sufficing to
itself for superstructure as well as base. Natural enough this, for
_humanum est errare_; but very humanly erroneous withal, for to include
Deity itself in the same denial with pseudo-divine attributes is about
as sagacious a proceeding as to refuse to recognise the sun at midday on
account of his not appearing in Phoebus's chariot and four.

When religion on the defensive declares herself opposed to reason, so
much the worse for religion. She is thereby virtually surrendering at
discretion, since to appeal to her only other resource--revelation--is
to beg the whole subject in dispute. Similarly, the worse and still less
excusable is it for science to declare herself irreconcileable with
religion, for she, too, is thereby slighting reason. It is only by
forsaking the single guide in whom she professes to trust, and blindly
giving herself up to angry prejudice, that she can fail to discover the
rational solidity of so much of every religion as consists of theism.

For this, as we have seen, the argument from design abundantly suffices,
although the only absolute certainty thence deducible be that the
universe must have an author or authors fully equal to its original
construction, its subsequent development, and its continued maintenance.
Even if it be not inconceivable, notwithstanding that the chances to the
contrary be many times infinity to one, that the mere restlessness of
some utterly unintelligent force may have fabricated all material
st