RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY.
Mr. COMBS of Edinburgh has published an interesting supple- ment to the volume of Testimonials noticed in the Spectator of the 11th instant. It contains a discussion—or rather statement— partly by Mr. Comm himself, and partly by the Reverend Pro- fessor DUNCAN, of the relative position of Religion and Philosophy, which well deserves attention. Mr. DUNCAN, who is Professor of Divinity to the United Associate Synod, having received an appli- cation from Dr. NEILL, undertakes without hesitation the task of exhibiting the relation between Phrenology and Christianity ; and, whatever may be our opinion concerning the success of his attempt, or the value of his mode of elucidation, it is impossible not to admire the free and enlightened Christian spirit which dis- tinguishes it. All along, from the beginning of time—at least from the birth of priesthood—it has been the chief effort of hot and priestly zealotry, to pounce on every opening science as inimical to religion ; and the glory seems to have been won, not by the person who sought in the light of that new science wherewithal to augment his knowledge of God, and purify and enlarge previous interpretations of Scripture, but by the furious and successful widener of a breach which could be only apparent, inasmuch as all true knowledge must in the main harmonize and be coordinate. Mr. DUNCAN'S testimonial is one of the finest specimens we have seen of a spirit and temper directly the reverse. That perhaps he has not got to the root of his thesis, matters comparatively little,— Christianity has at least taught him how truth is to be sought; and his charitable language and cheerful faith may well put to shame the miserable and ignorant intolerance with which, not Phrenology only, but all new sciences, are elsewhere persecuted.
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