The Bible and Science

Abstract

THIS work is in the form of seventeen lectures, which appear to have been delivered before an orthodox audience. Their scope is a wide one, ranging from sketches of ancient Egyptian and Israelitish life to the newest results in biological science. The principal object of the book is professedly that of showing how Darwinism is not antagonistic to Christian belief in general, or to the Mosaic account of creation in particular. But although this is the peg, so to speak, on which the coarse of lectures is made to hang, occasion is taken to devote the main part of the work to rendering in a plain and popular form an epitome of the leading facts of animal and vegetable morphology. This part of the work is admirably done. Indeed we do not know any writings of this nature better calculated to accomplish their object of making science easy to the general reader; and as the spirit is throughout tender, not to say sympathetic, towards traditional beliefs, the book deserves a large circulation among the always increasing class of persons who desire to learn, with a small amount of trouble and without fear of stumbling upon any cloven hoof, what biological science has done, is doing, and is likely to do. In a word, this part of the book, besides being written in a very graceful style, well exemplifies the truth that no writer is so able to serve up to the general public the facts of science in a palatable form as one who is himself a practical worker in the subjects which he expounds. In the interests of scientific education, therefore, we should like to see “The Bible and Science” pass through any number of editions.

The Bible and Science.

By T. Lauder Brunton, &c. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1881.)