Religion and Science coalesce, we must know in what direction to look for it, and what kind of truth it is likely to be.
§7. We have found à priori reason for believing that in
all religions, even the rudest, there lies hidden a fundamental
verity, We have inferred that this fundamental verity is
that element common to all religions, which remains after
their discordant peculiarities have been mutually cancelled,
And we have further inferred that this element is almost
certain to be more abstract than any current religious
doctrine. Now it is manifest that only in some highly
abstract proposition, can Religion and Science find a common
ground. Neither such dogmas as those of the trinitarian and
unitarian, nor any such idea as that of propitiation, common
though it may be to all religions, can serve as the desired
basis of agreement; for Science cannot recognize beliefs like
these: they lie beyond its sphere. Hence we see not only
that, judging by analogy, the essential truth contained in
Religion is that most abstract element pervading all its forms;
but also that this most abstract element is the only one in
which Religion is likely to agree with Science.
Similarly if we begin at the other end, and inquire what scientific truth can unite Science and Religion. It is at once manifest that Religion can take no cognizance of special scientific doctrines; any more than Science can take cognizance of special religious doctrines. The truth which Science asserts and Religion indorses cannot be one furnished by mathematics; nor can it be a physical truth; nor can it be a truth in chemistry: it cannot be a truth belonging to any particular science. No generalization of the phenomena of space, of time, of matter, or of force, can become a Religious conception. Such a conception, if it anywhere exists in Science, must be more general than any of these — must be one underlying all of them. If there be a fact which Science recognizes in common with Religion, it must be that
