Note 8 — INTRODUCTION.

“It is too evident,” says a modern philosopher, “that in the eyes of science, which, reasoning about discoveries, makes a rule to admit nothing as a theory which cannot be proved by experience, the agreement of faith with reason is a chimera: to speak more exactly, such a problem does not exist. The conditions of science are the observation of facts,—not of facts exceptionally produced, seen by chance, noted by privileged witnesses, and unable to be reproduced at will; but constant facts, placed under one’s hand for observation, and always able to be verified. We must consider that religion can in no way submit to such exigencies, and that the faith which it proclaims must be, in this light, radically inconsistent.”—P. J. Proudhon, De la Justice, vol. ii, p. 309. See also on this subject, L. Fleury, Le Progrès, 1858, No. 4, p. 92. De Jouvencel, Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, May 2, 1861.