The conflict of truth / [Frederick Hugh Capron].

  • Capron, F. Hugh (Frederick Hugh), 1857-1955.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The conflict of truth / [Frederick Hugh Capron]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    surely, is an admission of immense value to the theolojrian— an admission which not only carries Science herself to the very portal of the spiritual world, hut which concedes in principle, if not in degree, everything for which Theology contends. For does it not, by removiug the catastrophic appearance of Religion’s central belief, dispose at once, and for ever, of the greatest difficulty with which she has hitherto had to contend ? As long as we believe only in the existence of a visible world, the supposition of a second invisible world may appear monstrous. But now that we know it to be an admitted scientific fact that, besides our visible physical world, there is an invisible psychical world, the further belief in a third in- visible spiritual world acquires an altogether new sanction. Its seemingly anomalous character disappears. It falls into harmony with the now-known order of Nature. And when from the question of principle we pass to that of degree, it is difficult to see how Science can much longer successfully maintain her rejection of this third invisible spiritual world. On her own showing she is bound to “ take into account all the phenomena of the Universe which are brought to her knowledge by observation or experiment.” But has she, in her rejection of the spiritual world, acted up to her own principles ? Has she, upon this point, taken into account all the available i)henomena ? Can it be said that she has really and truly, with that unselfish and unbiassed impartiality which is elsewhere her grand charac- teristic, weighed and considered those strange phenomena which the Bible presents, when brought into contact with modern science, and which are as much entitled to considera- tion as any other phenomenon whatever, that is to be found in the Universe? Must it not rather be admitted that we have here a series of phenomena which, if Science has not entirely ignored, she has at least persistently undervalued ? To those who incline to this latter opinion the foregoing argument is not undeserving of attention. It is based upon phenomena which press for an explanation, and of which no