A Discourse on the Studies of the University by Adam Sedgwick

A Discourse on the Studies of the University Reviews

• 
  Steven H

  A BOOK ABOUT THEN-CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE, NOT THE COLLEGE
  
  Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873) was one of the founders of modern geology. Although he had guided the young Charles Darwin in his early study of geology and continued to be on friendly terms, he was an opponent of Darwin's theory of evolution.
  
  He wrote in the Preface to this 1833 book (a shorter form of which was originally delivered as a sermon in the Chapel of Trinity College), "[The author] has attacked the utilitarian theory of morals, nor merely because he thinks it founded on false reasoning, but because he also believes that it produces a degrading effect on the temper and conduct of those who adopt it... he thinks it unfortunate that there is no English work on morals at once unexceptionable in its principles, and cast in such as form as to meet the wants of the University." (Pg.vi)
  
  He asserts, "How any believer can deny the reality of a natural religion when he reads those passages [Ps. 139:7-12] ... is more than I can understand. We are told by St. Paul [Rom 1:23] that even the Gentiles are without excuse... Yet I have myself heard it asserted within these very walls, that there is no religion of nature, and that we have no knowledge of the attributes of God or even of his existence, independently of revelation." (Pg. 15)
  
  He observes, "Geology, like every other science when well interpreted, lends its aid to natural religion. It tells us, out of its own records, that man has been but a few years a dweller on the earth; for the traces of himself and of his works are confined to the last monuments of its history. Independently of every written testimony, we therefore believe that man, with all his powers and appentencies, his marvellous structure and his fitness for the world around him, was called into being within a few thousand years of the days in which we live---not by a transmutation of species (a theory no better than a frenzied dream), but by a provident contriving power. And thus we at once remove a stumbling block, thrown in our way by those who would rid themselves of a prescient first cause, by trying to resolve all phenomena into a succession of material actions, ascending into an eternity of past time." (Pg. 22-23)
  
  He suggests, "If, then, our planetary system was gradually evolved from a primeval condition of matter, we may well believe, that every material change within it, from first to last, has been but a manifestation of the Godhead, and an emanation from his immediate will---Or we may suppose, that new powers have, by an act of creative interference, been impressed on it at successive epochs of its changes; and that these new powers, working together with the old, MAY have brought about the next system of material conditions." (Pg. 24)
  
  He says, "Our classical studies help us to interpret the oracles of God, and enable us to read the book wherein man's moral destinies are written, and the means of eternal life are placed before him." (Pg. 31) He adds, "there is in the moral government of God much that is beyond the grasp of mere philosophy; and so teaches us to look beyond this world, and in the consolations of religion and the hopes of a future life to seek a better and higher sanction; and in the motives of Christian love to find a steadier and more abiding principle of holy action, than all the philosophy upon earth ever has given or ever can give to man in the hour of temptation." (Pg. 48)
  
  He argues, "I think that to reject the moral sense is to destroy the foundation of all moral philosophy---that the rule of expediency, as stated by Paley, is based in false reasoning on the attributes of God---that the rule itself is ill-suited to the capacity of man---that it is opposed to the true spirit of the Christian religion---and that, however honestly it may be accepted, it tends inevitably to lower the standard of what is right and good." (Pg. 68)
  
  He admits in an Appendix, however, that "if the Bible be a rule of life and faith---a record of our moral destinies---it is not (I repeat), nor does it pretend to be, a revelation of natural science... The Bible instructs us that man, and other living things, have been placed but a few years upon the earth; and the physical monuments of the world bear witness to the same truth... [If] the geologist ... proves... by incontrovertible evidence of physical phenomena) that there were former conditions of our planet, separated from each other by vast intervals of time, during which man, and the other creatures of his own date, had not been called into being. Periods such as these belong not, therefore, to the moral history or our race; and come neither within the letter nor the spirit of revelation. Between the first creation of the earth and that day in which it pleased God to place man upon it, who shall dare to define the interval? On this question Scripture is silent... Pursued in this spirit, Geology can neither lead to any false conclusions, nor offend against any religious truth." (Pg. 105)
  
  This book will be of interest to those studying the history of religious interpretations of science.