CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
Conditions of the Inquiry.
| Advantages resulting from recent advances in physical science — Advance does not unsettle the whole mass of conviction — Religion and science agree in seeking a rational basis, and both present a body of harmonized conceptions — Diversity of view is to be expected in both spheres — Needless anxiety as to alleged conflict between science and religion — The first requisite is to trace the boundaries of the two departments of thought — Description of religion, natural and revealed — Description of science, its method and sphere — Common starting ground for both — Each supplies inducement for seeking a harmony | [9] |
LECTURE II.
Experience gathered from Past Conflicts.
| Value of the lessons from past failures — Discussions as to "spontaneous generation" — Range of experiments and mode of conducting them — Difficulties in excluding germinal forms, and in determining the temperature at which their destruction was ensured — Hopefulness awakened by earlier investigations — Acknowledged failure as the result of more rigid tests — Conclusions of Pasteur, Roberts, Tyndall — Close of the discussion as maintained by Bastian — Dr. Draper's "History of the Conflict between Religion and Science" — Objections to the plan of the book — Misleading representations of conflict — Alleged scriptural view of the nature of the world, incapable of vindication — The Bible not a book of science, but a revelation of the way of deliverance for sinful man | [43] |
LECTURE III.
Inorganic Elements in the Universe.