heir translation into light does not exist. And so, from
this region of darkness and mystery which surrounds us, rays may now be
darting which require but the development of the proper intellectual
organs to translate them into knowledge as far surpassing ours as ours
surpasses that of the wallowing reptiles which once held possession of
this planet. Meanwhile the mystery is not without its uses. It certainly
may be made a power in the human soul; but it is a power which has
feeling, not knowledge, for its base. It may be, and will be, and we hope
is, turned to account, both in steadying and strengthening the intellect,
and in rescuing man from that littleness to which in the struggle for
existence or for precedence in the world he is continually prone.

JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN

CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE[5]

So far, then, as these remarks have gone, Theology and Physics cannot
touch each other, have no intercommunion, have no ground of difference or
agreement, of jealousy or of sympathy. As well may musical truths be said
to interfere with the doctrines of architectural science; as well may
there be a collision between the mechanist and the geologist, the engineer
and the grammarian; as well might the British Parliament or the French
nation be jealous of some possible belligerent power upon the surface of
the moon, as Physics pick a quarrel with Theology. And it may be
well--before I proceed to fill up in detail this outline, and to explain
what has to be explained in this statement--to corroborate it, as it
stands, by the remarkable words upon the subject of a writer of the
day:[6]--

"We often hear it said," he observes, writing as a Protestant (and here
let me assure you, gentlemen, that though his words have a controversial
tone with them, I do not quote them in that aspect, or as wishing here to
urge anything against Protestants, but merely in pursuance of my own
point, that Revelation and Physical Science cannot really come into
collision), "we often hear it said that the world is constantly becoming
more and more enlightened, and that this enlightenment must be favorable
to Protestantism, and unfavorable to Catholicism. We wish that we could
think so. But we see great reason to doubt whether this is a well-founded
expectation. We see that during the last two hundred and fifty years the
human mind has been in the highest degree active; that it has made great
advances in every branch of natur