The antiquity of man from the point of view of religion : in answer to Mr. S. Laing's Modern science and modern thought / by F. Hugh Capron.

  • Capron, F. Hugh (Frederick Hugh), 1857-1955.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The antiquity of man from the point of view of religion : in answer to Mr. S. Laing's Modern science and modern thought / by F. Hugh Capron. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    108/116 (page 96)
    To such an attack this is clearly the only mode of defence open. Extraneous evidence of the Bible truth, however much it might tend to support Theo- logical doctrines, or to discredit Scientific theories, would obviously be no answer to the present chal- lenge, where the accuracy of the alleged Scientific facts is not disputed. Here in the very nature of things we are confined to internal evidence ; and hence it is that no objection can be taken to our defence on the ground that we have not defined ‘ spirit,’ nor proved that man is spiritual. For the question before us is not ‘ What are the proved facts of Religion V but ‘ How far do the allegatiofis of the Bible tally with the discoveries of Science T But in endeavouring to answer this question we have simultaneously and unavoidably transcended the negative limits of defence. The mere fact of coincidence (if established) between the allegations of Religion and the teachings of Science, has a positive value of its own. If in a Carpenter’s work- shop we should discover two rough chips of wood, dissimilar in shape, and having undesignedly irre- gular outlines, and if, on placing them side by side, we should discover that they precisely tallied, that every prominence on the one was answered by a corresponding indent on the other, so that, when placed together, they exactly fitted. It would be difficult to persuade us that they were not chips from the same block. And if, on comparing Religion with Science, we should find that their outlines, so