Europe of To-day 603 contentious and thorny philosophy of Aristotle, more than was fit, with the body of religion. . . . Lastly, some are weakly afraid lest a deeper search into nature should transgress the permitted limits of sober- mindedness ; wrongfully wresting and transferring what is said in Holy Writ against those who pry into sacred mys- teries to the hidden things of nature, which are barred by no prohibition. Others, with more subtlety, surmise and reflect that if secondary causes are unknown everything can be more readily referred to the divine hand and rod, — a point in which they think religion greatly concerned ; which is, in fact, nothing else but to seek to gratify God with a lie. Others fear from past example that movements and changes in philosophy will end in assaults on religion ; and others again appear apprehensive that in the investiga- tion of nature something may be found to subvert, or at least shake, the authority of religion, especially with the unlearned. But these two last fears seem to me to savor utterly of carnal wisdom ; as if men in the recesses and secret thoughts of their hearts doubted and distrusted the strength of reli- gion, and the empire of faith over the senses, and therefore feared that the investigation of truth in nature might be dangerous to them. But if the matter be truly considered, natural philosophy is, after the word of God, at once the surest medicine against superstition and the most approved nourishment for faith ; and therefore she is rightly given to religion as her most faithful handmaid, since the one displays the will of God, the other his power. . . . . . . Again, in the customs and institutions of schools, academies, colleges, and similar bodies destined for the abode of learned men and the cultivation of learning, everything is found adverse to the progress of science. For the lectures and exercises there are so ordered that to think or speculate on anything out of the common way can hardly occur to any man. And if one or two have the boldness to use any liberty of judgment, they must undertake the task all by themselves ; they can have no No conflict between science and religion. Universities opposed to scientific advance
