Recent advances in natural science in their relation to the Christian faith : a paper read at the Reading Church Congress, October, 1883 / by Professor Flower.

William Henry Flower

Date:: [1883]

Credit: Recent advances in natural science in their relation to the Christian faith : a paper read at the Reading Church Congress, October, 1883 / by Professor Flower. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$RECENT ADVANCES THEIR RELATION\rbvJ_H] FAITH. ^ SCIENCE HRISTIAN IN I have been requested by the Subjects Committee of the Congress to place before you a brief statement of some of the advances which have recently been made in natural science, with a view to open a discussion upon their relations, real or supposed, to religious belief. The particular advances which, as I am given to understand, were especially in the minds of the Committee in proposing this question, are those which have resulted in the more or less general adoption by scientific men of the view of the sequence of events which have taken place, and are still taking place in the universe, to which the term evolution is now commonly applied. All that is embraced by this term, the various realms of nature in which its manifestations are traced, the various shades of meaning attached to it by different persons, would constitute far too large and complex a subject to be treated of in the time to which addresses to this meeting are wisely restricted. I will therefore select for special con- sideration the only point in the application of the theory upon which I can speak with any practical knowledge; one which is, however, in the eyes of many of very vital interest. It is the one, at all events, which at the present moment attracts most attention ; the new ideas upon it being received with enthusiasm by some, and with distrust, if not with abhorrence, by others. The doctrine of continuity, or of direct relation of event to some preceding event according to a natural and orderly sequence is now generally recognised in the inorganic world ; and although the modern expansion of this doctrine as applied to the living inhabitants of the earth, appears to many so startling, and has met with so much opposition, it is, in a more restricted application, a very old and wide- spread article of scientific as well as of popular faith. Putting aside, as quite immaterial to the present discussion, the still controverted question of the evidences of the production of the lowest and most rudimentary forms of life from inorganic matter, it may be stated as certain that there is no rational and educated person, whatever his religious beliefs or philosophical views, who is not convinced that every individual animal or plant, sufficiently highly organised to deserve such distinctive appellation, now existing upon the world, has been$