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.

  • Flower, William Henry, 1831-1899.
Date:
[1883]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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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    s that of the beasts of the field, passing through all the phases they go through, and existing long before possessing, except potentially, any of the special attributes of humanity. At what exact period, and by what means the great transformation takes place.no one can tell. If the most Godlike of men have passed through the stages which physiologists recognise in human development without prejudice to the noblest, highest, most divine part of their nature, why should not the race of mankind, as a whole, have had a similar origin, followed by similar progress and development, equally without prejudice to its present condition and future destiny ? Can it be of real consequence at the present time, either to our faith or our practice, whether the first man had such an extremely lowly beginning as the dust of the earth, in the literal sense of the words, or whether he was formed through the intervention of various progressive stages of animal life ? The reign of order and law in the government of the world has been so far admitted that all these questions have really become questions of a little more or a little less order and law. Science may well be left to work out the details as it may. It has thrown some light, little enough at present, but ever increasing, and for which we should all be thankful upon the processes or methods by which the world, in which we dwell, has been brought into its present condition. The wonder and mystery of Creation remains as wonderful and mysterious as before. Of the origin of the whole, science tells us nothing. It is still as impossible as ever to conceive that such a world, governed by laws, the operations of which have led to such mighty results, and are attended by such future promise, could have originated without the intervention of some power external to itself. If the succession of small miracles, formerly supposed to regulate the operations of nature, no longer satisfies us have we not substituted for them one of immeasurable greatness and grandeur ?