FAITH AND SCIENCE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 153, 7 April 1876, Page 8

FAITH AND SCIENCE.

Catholics in England, as far as their intellectual life and external action in the world are concerned, are beset with many difficulties and exposed to not a few dangers. They are hemmed in on every side by professors of various religions, by political writers and philosophical thinkers whose voice and action betray principles in more or less open, in more or less direct, antagonism to the teachings of Catholic Faith and Christian philosophy. Our fathers were constrained by circumstances to live a cloistered and secluded life far removed from the stir and turmoil of intellectual conflict and contact with the active world. But we, on the contrary, emancipated from their enforced seclusion, are thrown, and, to a great extent, still ill-prepared, into a society which doubts or questions the first principles of revealed religion. In the higher regions of thoughts at least the multiplying signs of infidelity are but too visible. By their exceptional intellectual position as the uncompromising champions and representatives of the Christian faith, imposed upon them by events and by the rapid development of scepticism in English thought, Catholics are brought, if we may so speak, into an unnatural prominence, and incur a responsibility greater than that imposed upon any other section of English society. This position has its dangers as well as its opportunities. As a minority in the intellectual world, holding fast to truths carelessly surrendered by some, reduced to thin and vapory shadows by others, and torn up by the roots by the more advanced and bolder freethinkers, Catholics have to act on the defensive, t > dispute every inch of ground, to deny almost as a matter of prudence, or at any rate, as their first impulse, every advance science makes in. its discoveries. The habit of mind has dangers of its own, and sometimes does much to compromise the cause of truth.

Catholics have to be on their guard, not so much against being led astray by materialistic philosophy, for of that there is, happily, no special danger, as against an irrational fear of the rapid advances of scientific knowledge. Faith, delivered once for all to the saints, has no new discoveries to make, but science has, for only in our diy has it outgrown its infancy, and is now, by experiment and inquiry, compelling the earth and all created tLings to lay bare their secrets, and to make manifest their hidden truths. It is not the first time in the history of science that over-zealous or over-timid Catholics, oblivious for a while, perhaps, of the guiding power of faith, have trembled on the threshold of knowledge, and shut the open door of inquiry, unwisely fearing lest knowledge might endanger faith. None dispute the axiom that no knowledge is worth the sacrifice of that priceless gift, but many question the prudence of those who proposed it, regardless of circumstances and conditions as a means of preserving the faith. The human mind, as constituted by God, presses onward and thirsts with an ever-growing keenness for knowledge. What it needs more than ever in our days is not harsh oppression or cold obstruction, but guidance, wise restraint, and a sympathetic hearing. In dealing with the dangers that beset us in England, especially in our new capacity as the acknowledged intellectual representatives of the ancient Christian faith in Divine Revelation, it behoves us to show the generous confidence imparted by Divine faith in the results of scientific investigations, to keep our minds opon for the reception of knowledge, to aim as far as in our power lies at being the pioneers and guides in exploring new fields of knowledge and in assayiug the real value of the results obtained. Catholics possess great advantages in the security bestowed upon their minds by the illumination of faith. They are not intimidated or troubled by the vast speculations of sceptical philosophers. They can discriminate between the hardy assumption of scientific inquirers and the proved results of patient investigation. Truth is one, therefore there can be no real contradiction between faith and science. In the tide-wave of infidelity that seems now to be passing over the minds of men, it is not at all improbable that orthodox Protestantism will disappear in England as it has already disappear in Germany. But the Catholic Church, which in her long history has survived so many storms, moral and intellectual, will of a certainty bo found, when the waters of the impending deluge shall have subsided, as intact and unshaken as the rock on which, by the promise of Christ, she is to rest. Men then will come again to have from her Divine teaching the knowledge and the wisdom that comes from God, and is to bo found, as the latest experience will have shown, no where else in the world. — ' Westminster Gazette.'