criticism, can touch this, if any one possessed of knowledge, or
acuteness, could be absurd enough to make the attempt? Will the
progress of research prove that justice is worthless and mercy
hateful; will it ever soften the bitter contrast between our
actions and our aspirations; or show us the bounds of the
universe and bid us say, Go to, now we comprehend the infinite?
A faculty of wrath lay in those ancient Israelites, and surely
the prophet's staff would have made swift acquaintance with the
head of the scholar who had asked Micah whether, peradventure,
the Lord further required of him an implicit belief in the
accuracy of the cosmogony of Genesis!

What we are usually pleased to call religion nowadays is, for
the most part, Hellenised Judaism; and, not unfrequently, the
Hellenic element carries with it a mighty remnant of old-world
paganism and a great infusion of the worst and weakest products
of Greek scientific speculation; while fragments of Persian and
Babylonian, or rather Accadian, mythology burden the Judaic
contribution to the common stock.

The antagonism of science is not to religion, but to the heathen
survivals and the bad philosophy under which religion herself is
often well-nigh crushed. And, for my part, I trust that this
antagonism will never cease; but that, to the end of time, true
science will continue to fulfil one of her most beneficent
functions, that of relieving men from the burden of false
science which is imposed upon them in the name of religion.

This is the work that M. Reville and men such as he are doing
for us; this is the work which his opponents are endeavouring,