notions with which we now amuse our children in fairy tales
represent a style of thinking which once was current among grown
men and women, and which is still current wherever men remain in
a savage condition. The theories of the world wrought out by
early priest-philosophers were in great part made up of such
grotesque notions; and having become variously implicated with
ethical opinions as to the nature and consequences of right and
wrong behaviour, they acquired a kind of sanctity, so that any
thinker who in the light of a wider experience ventured to alter
or amend the primitive theory was likely to be vituperated as an
irreligious man or atheist. This sort of inference has not yet
been wholly abandoned, even in civilized communities. Even to-day
books are written about "the conflict between religion and
science," and other books are written with intent to reconcile
the two presumed antagonists. But when we look beneath the
surface of things, we see that in reality there has never been
any conflict between religion and science, nor is any
reconciliation called for where harmony has always existed. The
real historical conflict, which has been thus curiously misnamed,
has been the conflict between the more-crude opinions belonging
to the science of an earlier age and the less-crude opinions
belonging to the science of a later age. In the course of this
contest the more-crude opinions have usually been defended in the
name of religion, and the less-crude opinions have invariably won
the victory; but religion itself, which is not concerned with
opinion, but with the aspiration which leads us to strive after a
purer and holier life, has seldom or never been attacked. On the
contrary, the scientific men who have conducted the battle on
behalf of the less-crude opinions have generally been influenced
by this religious aspiration quite as strongly as the apologists