As we have seen in former chapters, an antagonism between religion and science had existed from the earliest days of Christianity.  On every occasion permitting its display it may be detected through successive centuries.  We witness it in the downfall of the Alexandrian Museum, in the cases of Erigena and Wiclif, in the contemptuous rejection by the heretics of the thirteenth century of the Scriptural account of the Creation; but it was not until the epoch of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, that the efforts of Science to burst from the thraldom in which she was fettered became uncontrollable.  In all countries the political power of the Church had greatly declined; her leading men perceived that the cloudy foundation on which she had stood was dissolving away.  Repressive measures against her antagonists, in old times resorted to with effect, could be no longer advantageously employed.  To her interests the burning of a philosopher here and there did more harm than good.  In her great conflict with astronomy, a conflict in which Galileo stands as the central figure, she received an utter overthrow; and, as we have seen, when the immortal work of Newton was printed, she could offer no resistance, though Leibnitz affirmed, in the face of Europe, that “Newton had robbed the Deity of some of his most excellent attributes, and had sapped the foundation of natural religion.”

From the time of Newton to our own time, the divergence of science from the dogmas of the Church has continually increased.  The Church declared that the earth is the central and most important body in the universe; that the sun and moon and stars are tributary to it.  On these points she was worsted by astronomy.  She affirmed that a universal deluge had covered the earth; that the only surviving animals were such as had been saved in an ark.  In this her error was established by geology.  She taught that there was a first man, who, some six or eight thousand years ago, was suddenly created or called into existence in a condition of physical and moral perfection, and from that condition he fell.  But anthropology has shown that human beings existed far back in geological time, and in a savage state but little better than that of the brute.

Many good and well-meaning men have attempted to reconcile the statements of Genesis with the discoveries of science, but it is in vain.  The divergence has increased so much, that it has become an absolute opposition.  One of the antagonists must give way.

May we not, then, be permitted to examine the authenticity of this book, which, since the second century, has been put forth as the criterion of scientific truth?  To maintain itself in a position so exalted, it must challenge human criticism.