HISTORY OF CONFLICT:RELIGION AND SCIENCE

HISTORY OF CONFLICT:
RELIGION AND SCIENCE

WHOEVER has had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the
mental condition of the intelligent classes in Europe and
America, must have perceived that there is a great and
rapidly-increasing departure from the public religious faith, and
that, while among the more frank this divergence is not
concealed, there is a far more extensive and far more dangerous
secession, private and unacknowledged.

So wide-spread and so powerful is this secession, that it can
neither be treated with contempt nor with punishment. It cannot
be extinguished by derision, by vituperation, or by force. The
time is rapidly approaching when it will give rise to serious
political results.

Ecclesiastical spirit no longer inspires the policy of the world.
Military fervor in behalf of faith has disappeared. Its only
souvenirs are the marble effigies of crusading knights, reposing
in the silent crypts of churches on their tombs.

That a crisis is imp...