Science Elucidative of Scripture, and not Antagonistic to It. By
John Radford Young, late Professor of Mathematics at Belfast College (Lockwood).—Mr. Young has boldly undertaken to show that there is no discrepancy between Scripture and science, without having recourse to the system of non-natural interpretation of the former which has been so generally employed by his predecessors in the attempt. It is really rather refreshing to find a man who, without actually repudiating scientific research as a means for arriving at truth, positively believes that the work of creation was completed in six days of twenty-four hours each. But, although Mr. Young certainly does his best to show that science and Scripture are not discordant, he holds that, if they cannot be reconciled, the former must give way to the latter ; and he does not scruple to throw himself, as a dernier ressort, on the omnipotence of the Creator, and to ask his opponents who they are that they should dare to say that anything is impossible to God. It is clearly useless to argue with a gentleman who has such a stronghold as this to flee to in case of defeat. Otherwise, we should like to hint to Mr. Young that his explanation of the well-known difficulty that, according to the Scripture account, light was created before the sun, appears to us to be not entirely satisfactory. He thinks that the admission of the undula- tory theory f light entirely removes the difficulty, since the ether in which the undidations are supposed to take place is independent of the sun. But, so fax AEI we know, the ether does not undulate—i. e., there
is no light—without the presence of some exciting cause ; for, otherwise, night would be as light as day ; so that we aro entitled to conclude that light requires a source of light, and that the admission of the undulatory theory in no way removes our difficulty on this point. We are, there- fore, reduced to a dilemma. If the sun was the only source of the light received by our earth, there could be no light before the fourth day of the creation ; if it was not, then its creation was an unnecessary act. But our principal objection to Mr. Young's book is based upon the tone which he thinks fit to assume towards his opponents. What, for instance, can be more needlessly offensive than the following observa- tion on Bishop Colenso's remark, that his own experience of the confu-
sion incident on the sudden removal of thirty or forty persons has led him to conclude that the Scripture account of the exodus from Egypt is not historically true ? "how is it," he asks, "that the right reverend author did not for a moment reflect that his people were not led by Jehovah, nor the people of Israel by the Bishop of Natal?" Whatever may be Mr. Young's acquaintance with the letter of the Book which he has under taken to defend, we fear that he has but little practical familiarity with its spirit.
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