The object of this chapter is to refute both parts of the Secularist's statement; to show some of the uncertainties, errors, contradictions, and blunders of the scientific men on whose testimony they receive their science; and to exhibit a few of the facts of religious experience which give a sufficient warrant for the Christian's faith.
Scientific observations are made by fallible men exposed to every description of error, prejudice and mistake; men who can not possibly divest themselves of their preconceived opinions in observing facts, and framing theories.
Lord Bacon long ago observed that "the eye of the human intellect is not dry, but receives a suffusion from the will and the affections, so that it may be almost said to engender any science it pleases. For what a man wishes to be true, that he prefers believing." "If the human intellect hath once taken a liking to any doctrine, either because received and credited, or because otherwise pleasing, it draws everything else into harmony with that doctrine, and to its support; and albeit there may be found a more powerful array of contradictory instances, these, however, it does not observe, or it contemns, or by distinction extenuates, and rejects."[323]
A prejudiced observer sees the facts distorted and exaggerated. "Thus it is that men will not see in the phenomena what alone is to be seen; in their observations they interpolate and expunge; and this mutilated and adulterated product they call a fact. And why? Because the real phenomena, if admitted, would spoil the pleasant music of their thoughts, and convert its factitious harmony into a discord. In consequence of this many a system professing to be reared exclusively on observation and fact, rests, in reality, mainly upon hypothesis and fiction. A pretended experience is indeed the screen behind which every illusive doctrine regularly retires. 'There are more false facts,' says Cullen, 'current in the world than false theories.' Fact, observation, induction, have always been the watchwords of those who have dealt most extensively in fancy."[324] We propose, therefore, to show that, I. The students of the physical sciences have no such certain knowledge of their facts and theories as Secularists pretend.
1. Mathematical science relating merely to abstract truth is supposed to possess powers of demonstration, and capability of scientific certainty superior to all other kinds of knowledge, but the moment we begin to apply it to any existing facts we enter the domain of liability to errors as numerous as our fallible observations of these facts; and when we attempt to apply mathematical demonstration to the infinite, and to enter the domain of faith, in which as immortals we are chiefly concerned, it baffles, deceives, and insults our reason. Take the following illustrations:
Let an infinite whole be divided into halves; the parts must be either finite or infinite. But they can not be finite, else an infinite whole would consist of a finite number of parts; neither can they be infinite, being each less than the infinite whole.
Again: it is mathematically demonstrable, that any piece of matter is infinitely divisible. A line therefore of half an inch long is infinitely divisible, or divisible into an infinite number of parts. Thus we have an infinite half inch. Further, for a moving body to pass a given point requires some time; and to pass an infinite number of points must require an infinite number of portions of time, or an eternity; therefore, as half an inch contains an infinite number of points, it will require eternity to pass half an inch.
Again: it is mathematically demonstrable, that a straight line, the asymptote of a hyperbola, may eternally approach the curve of the hyperbola and never meet it. But no axiom can be plainer than that if two lines continually approach each other they must at length meet. Here is a demonstration contradicting an axiom; and no man has ever yet shown the possibilities of reconciling them, nor yet of denying either side of the contradiction.
Again: it is a fundamental axiom, contained in the definition of a circle, that it must have a center; but the non-existence of this center is mathematically demonstrable, as follows: Let the diameter of the circle be bisected into two equal parts; the center must be in one, or the other, of these parts, or between them. It can not be in one of these parts, for they are equal; and, therefore, if it is in the one, it must also be in the other, and thus the circle would have two centers, which is absurd. Neither can it be between them, for they are in contact. Therefore the center must be a point, destitute of extension, something which does not occupy or exist in space. But as all existences exist in space, and this supposed center does not, it can not be an existence; therefore it is a non-existence.