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  Scientific and Religious Journal.


  VOL. I.      JANUARY, 1880.      NO. 1.




THE CONFLICT.


The pyramids, temples and palaces of Thebes are monuments of the ancient
intellects of our race. Great thinkers only were capable of giving to
the world the Vedas, the Apollo Belvidere and the Parthenon. The arts
and astronomy of Egypt harmonize very poorly with the idea that modern
scientists have all the wisdom and intelligence known in the history of
the ages. Among the wonderful characters of olden times we find
Epictetus, Josephus, Strabo, Pliny, Seneca, Virgil, Aristotle, Plato,
Tacitus, Thucydides and Herodotus.

The "Speculation of Evolution of Species" was advocated among the Greeks
six hundred years before the birth of Christ. Two thousand and three
hundred years ago the entire system of German philosophy, along with
modern pantheism, was advocated by the Buddhists and Brahmins.

In many very important respects the ancients were in advance of us,
especially in the arts, and we can not boast of superiority in either
letters or philosophy. "The gentlemen of modern materialistic schools do
not compare favorably with Plato and Cicero in the elevation and
reverence of their opinions." "Science has certainly made some
advancement, but where is the warrant for the boasting" of sciolists of
modern times?

Buddhists taught the most perfect outline of materialism in general.
"They believed in a supreme force, but denied the existence of a Supreme
Being. They rejected inquiry into first causes as unscientific,"
maintaining that facts alone were to be dealt with in all our
investigations.

The Brahmin contemplated the moment when his spirit would flow back into
the great "Pantheistic Being."

Modern materialists say, "We deal only with facts." "We never
speculate." The Buddhists, and the unbelievers who figure so boastingly
upon the rostrum in modern times, speak alike. They say: "As many facts
and second causes as you please, but ask no questions about first
causes; _that_ is unscientific." We should ask no questions (?) about
the invisible. They have been very true (?) to their own principles.

There is nothing speculative (?) in the hypothesis that General George
Washington was evolved from a crustacean. There never was a more absurd
and wild speculation. It is an old speculation. Anaximander, who lived
six centuries before Christ, advocated the assumption. His words are the
following: "The sun's heat, acting on the original miry earth, produced
filmy bladders or bubbles, and these, becoming surrounded with a prickly
rind, at length burst open, and as from an egg, animals came forth. At
first they were ill-formed and imperfect, but subsequently they
elaborated and developed." This has the genuine ring of the language of
modern unbelievers.

Christianity, in its beginning, had to encounter this "speculation"
along with the current literature and philosophy of a civilization which
was semi-barbarous and centuries old, but it triumphed over all, and in
the third century it triumphed everywhere. Since that time one effort
has been made upon the part of paganism to regain her former strength in
the old world. Julian made that effort. He tried to revive and establish
the supremacy of pagan thought by the power of the state. Subsequent to
this it disappeared in the east, and has only plead for toleration in
the west. But the dark ages came on in all their hideousness, and
unbelief developed itself about the close of the fifteenth century, all
over Europe. Paganism, as the result, was fostered near the bosom of
the church. The fifth Lateran Council proclaimed anew the tenet of the
imperishability of the spirit of man. The Padua University adopted a
system of materialism taught in the works of Alexander, of Aphrodisias.
A form of pantheism known in the philosophy of Averroes soon became a
center of skepticism.

In the latter part of the seventeenth century modern unbelievers began
their assaults. Lord Herbert and Hobbs in England, Spinoza in Holland,
and Bayle in France.

In seventeen hundred and thirteen Anthony Collins published a discourse
for the encouragement of a "clique" called "