, tremble to think what the future, if judged by the
past, is likely to bring forth. On both sides we have free discussion,
strong language, and earnest canvassing. Year by year stock is taken,
and year by year the balance is found to preponderate in favour of
Science.

This being the state of things of the present time, I think that with
the experience of the kind and degree of influence which Science has
exerted upon Religion in the past, we have material enough whereby to
estimate the probable extent of such influence in the future. This,
therefore, I shall endeavour to do by seeking to define, on general
principles, the limits within which it is antecedently possible that the
influence in question can be exercised. But in order to do this, it is
necessary to begin by estimating the kind and degree of the influence
which has been exerted by Science upon Religion in the past.

Thus much premised, we have in the first place to define the essential
nature both of Science and of Religion: for this is clearly the first
step in an analysis which has for its object an estimation of the actual
and possible effects of one of these departments of thought upon the
other.

Science, then, is essentially a department of thought having exclusive
reference to the Proximate. More particularly, it is a department of
thought having for its object the explanation of natural phenomena by
the discovery of natural (or proximate) causes. In so far as Science
ventures to trespass beyond this her only legitimate domain, and seeks
to interpret natural phenomena by the immediate agency of supernatural
or ultimate causes, in that degree has she ceased to be physical
science, and become ontological speculation. The truth of this statement
has now been practically recognized by all scientific workers; and terms
describing final causes have been banished from their vocabulary in
astronomy, chemistry, geology, biology, and even in psychology.

Religion, on the other hand, is a department of thought having no less
exclusive reference to the Ultimate. More particularly, it is a
department of thought having for its object a self-conscious and
intelligent Being, which it regards as a Personal God, and the
fountain-head of all causation. I am, of course, aware that the term
Religion has been of late years frequently used in senses which this
definition would not cover; but I conceive that this only shows how
frequently the term in question has been a