CLIPPINGS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XVI, Issue 2018, 26 January 1875, Page 2

CLIPPINGS.

[prom the spectator.] Cardinal Cullen and the Irish Catholic Bishops have put out a very careful Pastoral on the relation between science and faith, as discussed at Belfast in the meet ing of the British Association in August last. The Cardinal broaches the subject by saying cautiously enough— " It is the -dutyvand the right_of physical science to observe the~ phenomena and the laws of the material world, but the physicist, as such, will never: ask: himself by what influence external to the universe the universe is sustained, simply because he is a physicist. *' So far, good j indeed, even Professor Tyndall, we may remark, whose address called up Cardinal Cullen and his colleagues in the Catholic Episcopacy, did not infringe this fulej for he did not pretend to. say :j by. what influence external to his primitive atoms, the primitive atoms themselves on which he relied for snch wonderful developments, were generated! or sustained. But then Cardinal Mullen goes on to say that truth cannot contradict truth, and that if an appearance of contradiction exists, "it will be found that the boasted discovery which creates it is but an ephemeral theory, and not the. truth; or if its truth be beyond gainsay and the contradiction plain, then the doctrine with which it is in conflict will be found to be but a theological opinion, and not a dogma ; 'or if it be a dogma, it has been misunderstood, and not explained according to the mind of the church. " No doubt that is a statement; elastic enough . to cover all the cases in. which an infallible, dogma may give way before scientific investigation, without admitting in so many words that it has been compelled to give way. But we should like to ask the Cardinal the substantial difference between a true and infallible dogma universally misunderstood, up to a certain epoch, and a false dogma ? Does it consist merely in the fact that the former is couched in ambiguous words, to which one whole generation at?.: taches a false meaning, while another discovers for itself the only sense in which they can be true? But that would be little better than an infallible dogmatic pun, of which the less obvious sense, and the only true one", remains hidden fori generations. Yet, if that be not theexplanation, in what sense can an infallible . dogma be re-explained abas to agree with; the science which it seemed to all -men to; contradict, while yet its only .useful quality to man, that of. instructiveness, should be vindicated ? ". w .