Even in the early eighteenth century the light of science had hardly got beyond the first glimmering of dawn. Mathematics and astronomy were the only sciences which had passed into the positive and final stage. Chemistry, geology, biology, historical criticism, were not yet in a position to speak with authority even on subjects in their own province. Read a popular apologetic work of the eighteenth century; read Truth and Certainty of Christian Revelation, edition 1724, and you will find that a defender of the faith had in those days a comparatively easy task. Science being still in its infancy, Dr. Samuel Clarke gave reasons for the truth of Christian dogmas, which, though they could not be controverted then, would now be considered the most abject nonsense. Bead also Mr. S. Laing’s remarks on p. 13 of A Modern Zoroastrian, where he tells us that when he was “a student at Cambridge, little more than fifty years ago, astronomy was the only branch of natural science which could be said to be definitely brought within the domain of natural law, and that only as regards the law of gravity and the motions of the heavenly bodies, for little or nothing was known as to their constitution.”
P. [5], lines 18–19.—The vast antiquity of the earth.
“It does not seem unreasonable to suppose that 500 to 1,000 million years may have elapsed since the birth of the moon” (see Professor Darwin’s Presidential address at the meeting of the British Association in Johannesburg on August 30th, 1905).
P. [8], lines 27–9.—He is well aware of the odium he would incur should he proclaim his heterodox views concerning the popular religion.
Nor is it easy for even a well-known man to get his heterodox views published where they will be widely read. Sir Hiram Maxim wrote lately to the Literary Guide concerning his letter in the “Do We Believe?” correspondence, saying “it was necessary for my letter to have a slight coating of ecclesiastical sugar, otherwise it would not have been published.” Does the Church realise the extent to which men of science coat their popular writings with “ecclesiastical sugar”? The retail bookselling trade in England is still largely in the hands of persons belonging to the various sects, and, even where this is not so, few dare to push the works of glaringly heterodox writers. As an example of the difficulties which beset the way of a too truth-loving author, we may notice that it took three years before 2,000 copies of Mr. Samuel Laing’s Modern Science and Modern Thought could be sold, and its sale brought him no pecuniary profit.
P. [19], lines 2–3.—He [Sir Oliver Lodge] has never yet professed belief in a personal God.
He has now done so. In an article entitled “First Principles of Faith,” appearing in the Hibbert Journal for July, 1906, he has drawn up a new formula of faith, which commences: “I believe in one Infinite and Eternal Being, a guiding and loving Father, in whom all things consist.” He continues: “I believe that the Divine Nature is specially revealed to man through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lived and taught and suffered in Palestine 1,900 years ago, and has since been worshipped by the Christian Church as the immortal Son of God, the Saviour of the world.” This reconstructed Christian (?) creed has been deftly worded; but this, at least, is clear—the Virgin-birth, Resurrection, and Ascension form no part of the religious belief of Sir Oliver Lodge. The full text of the “Catechism” which he has designed for the use of teachers and others interested in the education of the young appears in the Standard of December 14th, 1906.
P. [20], line 31.—The religious naturally wish to discredit science.
It is a common assertion of the pious that modern science has continually to retrace its steps, and admit that it was mistaken in its facts and theories. The following pronouncement by Professor Ray Lankester, in his Presidential Address at the annual meeting of the British Association (held at York in 1906), should disillusion them: “During the last few years an idea has spread abroad that some of the more recent discoveries of science have revolutionised scientific ideas—have upset former theories, or have reversed them. Nothing is further from the truth.”
P. [25], lines 19–20.—They [Agnostics] “exhibit the very temper which Christ blesses.”