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HIS RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS, AND ETHI

Hardwick G

"Whoever hesitates to utter that which he thinks
highest truth, lest it should be too much in advance of
time, may re-assure himself by looking at his acts fro
impersonal point of view. Let him duly realise the fa
opinion is the agency through which character adapts extern
ments to itself that his opinion rightly forms part of this
a unit of force, constituting, with other such units, the
power which works out social changes-and he will pe
that he may properly give full utterance to his inmost
viction, leaving it to produce what effect it may
-HERBERT S

LONDON:

WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON'S COURT, FL

1899

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PREFACE.

WE may safely say, without fear of contradiction, th of the most remarkable discoveries of the nineteenth c has been the "law of evolution," so satisfactorily d strated, and now universally accepted as true b scientific world-i.e., by all who have taken the t and are able to investigate the subject, unbiassed b conceived opinion or prejudice. Not only for this w century be celebrated, but also for the extraordinary de ment of science; for the progress of education and ledge generally; and for the emancipation of science the slavery of the Church, by which it has itself beco independent power and a source of knowledge people.

During the greater part of fifteen centuries s was held in bondage by ecclesiasticism, and its de ment prevented. It was compelled to teach certain of the universe and its order, because in accor with those found in the Bible-a compilation of a mous writings, held as true, not on indisputable evi but simply on faith. These ideas, which so long vailed-and for attempts to deny which men SU and died—are now recognised as legendary and Faith and ecclesiastical authority, supported by the I tion, were the sole sources of knowledge to the peop

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phenomenon of the rainbow. But this disturbance nothing compared with that which, in the fifteenth cent put an end to the Dark Ages and produced what may considered the dawn of enlightenment. We refer to invention of printing by Gutenberg, and to the discove of America by Columbus, and of the southern stars Di Gama when he circumnavigated the Cape. This da burst forth into a perfect flood of scientific light in the n century by the labours and discoveries of Copernic Tycho Brahé, Galileo, Kepler, and Bruno, who dared think for themselves and form opinions contrary to t accepted teaching of the Church.

This independence of thought and breaking away fro orthodoxy resulted, in the seventeenth century, in the d covery of the barometer and of the thermometer. Almo concurrently came the still more wonderful and importan discovery of electricity, and the proof of its identity wit lightning by Franklin in the succeeding century. In 168 Halley demonstrated a method of measuring the sun distance by the transit of Venus, which was successfull effected in 1761 by Bradley and Delisle. It was in thi century that the two philosophers, Francis (Lord) Bacon, in England, and René Descartes, in France, expressed opinions differing from Orthodoxy-the former teaching that any true theory must be built up on facts and careful experiments; the latter, that it is more honest to acknowledge we are ignorant than to say that we know that which we have only heard from another, or that is not clearly proved. In 1666 Newton discovered the doctrine

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