Take the leading points discussed in the following lectures. How can a man who has heard only a brief and hurried course of thirty lectures on chemistry, twenty on anatomy and physiology, fifteen upon zoölogy, ten upon botany, ten upon mineralogy, and twenty upon geology, at the college, with no additional instruction at the theological seminary,--how can he judge correctly of points and reasoning difficult to be mastered by adepts in these sciences? How certain to be worsted in an argument with an accomplished naturalist who is a sceptic!
Suppose the sceptic takes the ground advocated by Oken and the author of the "Vestiges." Let the clergyman, whom I have supposed, read the works of Miller and Sedgwick in reply to the development hypothesis, and see whether he can even understand their arguments without a more careful study of the sciences on which they rest.
A subject of no small importance in its religious bearings has recently excited a good deal of sharp discussion in this country. I refer to the questions of the specific unity and unity of origin of the human race. To a person who has never studied the subject, it seems a matter easy to settle; yet, in fact, it demands extensive research even to understand. And we have seen one of the most accomplished zoölogists and anatomists of the present age take ground on these points in opposition to the almost universal opinion. The result has been that not a few talented replies to his arguments have appeared, mostly, I believe, from ministers. I have not seen them all. But in respect to those which I have read it has seemed to me, without having the least sympathy with the views of Professor Agassiz, that the authors have not the most remote conception of the principal arguments on which he relies, derived from zoölogy and comparative anatomy; nor do I believe that they can understand and appreciate them until they have studied those sciences.[1]
Although I fear that theologians are not aware of the fact, yet probably the doctrines of materialism are more widely embraced at this day than almost any other religious error. But in which of our schools, save the medical, is there any instruction given in physiology and zoölogy, that will prepare a man to make the least headway against such delusions? The arguments by which materialism is defended are among the most subtle in the whole range of theology and natural science; and without a knowledge of the latter they can neither be appreciated nor refuted. The mere metaphysical abstractions by which they are usually met excite only the contempt of the acute physiologist who is a materialist.