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"Modern science is in a dilemma; it must concede our hypothesis to be correct, or admit the possibility of miracle. To do so, is to say that there can be an infraction of natural law. If this can happen in one case, what assurance have we that it may not be repeated indefinitely, and so [...]

"For the lover of metaphor, science may be likened to a twinkling star shining with resplendent brightness through rifts in a bank of densely-black clouds. If her votaries cannot define that mysterious attraction which draws into concrete masses the material particles which form the smallest pebble on the ocean-beach, how can they define the limits [...]

""But, what is this attraction? who has seen attraction? who has met attraction? who has touched attraction? How do these mute bodies, intelligent, insensible, exercise upon each other unconsciously this reciprocity of action and reaction which holds them in a common equilibrium and unanimous harmony? Is this force which draws sun to sun, and atom [...]

""And why do they prophesy the overthrow of Christianity by science? Listen:...we must perish by science because we teach mysteries, and because the Christian mysteries are in radical antagonism with modern science....Mystery is the negation of common sense; science repels it; science condemns it; she has spoken - Anathema! Ah! you are right; if Christian [...]

"The following are a few fragments from a series of sermons by Felix, of Notre Dame, entitled Mystery and Science. They are worthy to be translated for and quoted in a work which is undertaken in precisely the same spirit as that exhibited by the preacher. For once the Church silenced for a time the [...]