l in the most dutiful and God-fearing way. In
considering these relations of science to our faith, the matter should
be dealt with in a philosophical way, and with a sense of the
differences between our own and earlier ages.

To the student of the relations between Christianity and science it
must appear doubtful whether the criticism or the other consequences
which the men of science had to meet from the Church was harmful to
their work. The early naturalists, like the Greeks whom they followed,
were greatly given to speculations concerning the processes of Nature,
which, though interesting, were unprofitable. They also showed a
curious tendency to mingle their scientific speculations with ancient
and base superstitions. They were often given to the absurdity
commonly known as the "black art," or witchcraft, and held to the
preposterous notions of the astrologists. Even the immortal astronomer
Kepler, who lived in the sixteenth century, was a professional
astrologer, and still held to the notion that the stars determined the
destiny of men. Many other of the famous inquirers in those years
which ushered in modern science believed in witchcraft. Thus for a
time natural learning was in a way associated with ancient and
pernicious beliefs which the Church was seeking to overthrow. One
result of the clerical opposition to the advancement of science was
that its votaries were driven to prove every step which led to their
conclusions. They were forced to abandon the loose speculation of
their intellectual guides, the Greeks, and to betake themselves to
observation. Thus a part of the laborious fact-gathering habit on
which the modern advance of science has absolutely depended was due to
the care which men had to exercise in face of the religious
authorities.

In our own time, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the
conflict between the religious authority and the men of science has
practically ceased. Even the Roman Church permits almost everywhere an
untrammelled teaching of the established learning to which it was at
one time opposed. Men have come to see that all truth is accordant,
and that religion has nothing to fear from the faithful and devoted
study of Nature.

The advance of science in general in modern times has been greatly due
to the development of mechanical inventions. Among the ancients, the
tools which served in the arts were few in number, and these of
exceeding simplicity. So far as we can as