t it should not
use speculative views of religious character, the proving of which belongs
to the science of religion, for the purpose of scientific generalizations,
in case the science of religion should prove that such views are
antagonistic to the nature and the principles of religion.

Those who, on religious grounds, look with suspicion upon scientific
investigation, are frequently influenced by two erroneous notions, closely
related to one another, without regard to the well-grounded aversion to the
atheistic beauty with which so many scientific works are adorned. One of
these errors is the notion that any object is remote from divine causality
in the degree in which it has the cause of its origin in the natural
connection, and that it would be easier for us to trace the origin of an
object to the authorship of God, if we could not find any natural cause of
its origin, than if we had knowledge of such a natural cause. The other
error is the notion that the idea of "creation" excludes the idea of the
action of secondary causes.

If the first mentioned opinion were correct, those certainly would be right
who identify the progress of sciences with the progress of atheism; and
ignorance would then be the most effective protection of piety. But this
opinion is in direct conflict with all sound religious and scientific
reasoning. It is in conflict with sound religious reasoning: for the
religious view of the world sees in nature itself, with its whole
association of causes and effects, a work of God; and as certainly as,
according to the religious view of nature, a thousand years in the sight of
God are but as yesterday when it is past, just so certainly is an object a
work of {255} God, whether its origin is due to milliards of _well-known_
secondary causes, which all together are works of God--as well with
reference to the laws which they obey as to the materials and forces in
which these laws are active--or whether, when treating the question as to
the immediate cause of its existence, we see ourselves led to an agency
_unknown_ to us. And that opinion is also in conflict with all sound
scientific reasoning: for the fact that we do not have any knowledge of the
immediate cause of a phenomenon, is by no means a proof that this immediate
cause is the direct action of God who does not use any secondary causes;
the phenomena may just as well have still more material or immaterial
secondary causes, unknown to us. We will