Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- PROLOGUE
- I THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF PALÆONTOLOGY
- II THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND THE INTERPRETERS OF NATURE
- III MR GLADSTONE AND GENESIS
- IV THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY
- V SCIENCE AND MORALS
- VI SCIENTIFIC AND PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM
- VII SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE
- VIII AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY
- IX AGNOSTICISM
- X THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS
- XI AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER
- XII AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
- XIII THE LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE
- XIV THE KEEPERS OF THE HERD OF SWINE
- XV ILLUSTRATIONS OF MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL METHODS
- XVI HASISADRA'S ADVENTURE
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- PROLOGUE
- I THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF PALÆONTOLOGY
- II THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND THE INTERPRETERS OF NATURE
- III MR GLADSTONE AND GENESIS
- IV THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY
- V SCIENCE AND MORALS
- VI SCIENTIFIC AND PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM
- VII SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE
- VIII AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY
- IX AGNOSTICISM
- X THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS
- XI AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER
- XII AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
- XIII THE LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND THE LIGHT OF SCIENCE
- XIV THE KEEPERS OF THE HERD OF SWINE
- XV ILLUSTRATIONS OF MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL METHODS
- XVI HASISADRA'S ADVENTURE
Summary
Le plus grand service qu'on puisse rendre à la science est d'y faire place nette avant d'y rien construire.
–Cuvier.Most of the Essays comprised in the present volume have been written during the last six or seven years, without premeditated purpose or intentional connection, in reply to attacks upon doctrines which I hold to be well founded; or in refutation of allegations respecting matters lying within the province of natural knowledge, which I believe to be erroneous; and they bear the mark of their origin in the controversial tone which pervades them.
Of polemical writing, as of other kinds of warfare, I think it may be said, that it is often useful, sometimes necessary, and always more or less of an evil. It is useful, when it attracts attention to topics which might otherwise be neglected; and when, as does sometimes happen, those who come to see a contest remain to think. It is necessary, when the interests of truth and of justice are at stake. It is an evil, in so far as controversy always tends to degenerate into quarrelling, to swerve from the great issue of what is right and what is wrong to the very small question of who is right and who is wrong. I venture to hope that the useful and the necessary were more conspicuous than the evil attributes of literary militancy, when these papers were first published; but I have had some hesitation about reprinting them.
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- Information
- Essays upon some Controverted Questions , pp. 1 - 54Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1892