[110] Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences of 20 April, 1863, page 738.
[111] Exeter Hall Lectures—The Power of God in His Animal Creation, pamphlet in 12mo. This remarkable lecture contains a twofold protest—against the blindness of those savants who fail to recognize the presence of God in nature; and against the pretensions of those theologians who attack the certain results of the study of nature, relying upon texts more or less accurately interpreted.
[112] Chemistry applied to Agriculture and to Physiology (in German). Seventh edition. Introd. page 69.
[113] Since these words were spoken, M. de la Rive has been named an associated member of the Institute of France (Academy of Sciences), and thus elevated to the first of scientific dignities. It might be shown, I believe, that the greater number of the eight associates of the Academy of Sciences to be found in the world, make profession of their faith in God the Creator, the Almighty and Holy One. The silence which others may have preserved on the subject would, moreover, be no authority for concluding that they do not share in beliefs and sentiments which they have not had the occasion perhaps of publicly expressing.
[114] On the Origin of Species, page 81. Fifth edition.
[115] On the Origin of Species. The text is—"the necessary series of facts;" but it would be to do the writer wrong to impute to him the idea that observation reveals to us what is necessary, in the philosophical import of the word.
[116] On the Origin of Species.
[117] Caro, L'Idée de Dieu, page 47.
[118] Force et Matière, page 181.
[119] The Büchner proceeding is found again pretty exactly in Les Mondes of M. Amédée Guillemin. This writer affirms (page 60 of the third edition) that science does not approach metaphysical questions; and asserts in the same page, ten lines further on, that astronomical experience leads our reason to the idea of the eternity of the universe. After that, he may laugh, if he will, at lovers of the absolute.