Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/407

Rh does not end the war. Muny earnest and good men oppose the doctrine for two hundred years longer. Then the French astronomers make their measurements of degrees in equatorial and polar regions and add to other proofs that of the lengthened pendulum. When this was done, when the deductions of science were seen to be established by the simple test of measurement, beautifully, perfectly, then and then only this war of twelve centuries ended.

And now what was the result of this war? The efforts of Eusebius and Lactantius to deaden scientific thought; the efforts of Augustine to combat it; the efforts of Cosmas to stop it by dogmatism; the efforts of Boniface, and Zachary, and others to stop it by force, conscientious as they all were, had resulted in what? Simply in forcing into many noble minds this most unfortunate conviction, that Science and Religion are enemies; simply in driving away from religion hosts of the best men in all those centuries. The result was wholly bad. No optimism can change that verdict.

On the other hand, what was gained by the warriors of science for religion? Simply, a far more ennobling conception of the world, and a far truer conception of Him who made and who sustains it.

Which is the more consistent with a great, true religion—the cosmography of Cosmas, or that of Isaac Newton? Which presents the nobler food for religious thought—the diatribes of Lactantius, or the astronomical discourses of Thomas Chalmers?

The next great battle was fought on a question relating to the position of the earth among the heavenly bodies. On one side, the great body of conscientious religious men planted themselves firmly on the geocentric doctrine—the doctrine that the earth is the centre, and that the sun and planets revolve about it. The doctrine was old, and of the highest respectability. The very name, Ptolemaic theory, carried weight. It had been elaborated until it accounted well for the phenomena. Exact textual interpreters of Scripture cherished it, for it agreed with the letter of the sacred text.

Still the germs of the heliocentric theory had been planted long before, and well planted; it had seemed ready even to bloom forth