Doubter's Doubts About Science and Religion

A DOUBTER'S Doubts about Science and Religion was first published anonymously, at a time when the author was Assistant Commissioner of Police and Head of the Criminal Investigation Department, at Scotland Yard (London). As the book is addressed to men of the world, it speaks from the standpoint of scepticism — the true scepticism which tests everything, not the sham sort which credulously accepts anything that seems to discredit the Bible. If, for example, the Bible taught evolution, it may be averred that evolution would be scoffed by many who now cling to it with a childlike faith worthy of the infant class in the Sunday School. With the true sceptic it is merely a philosophic theory. The reader will thus be prepared to find that destructive criticism is in the main the author's method. To some the book will seem unsatisfactory on this account, and yet they must recognise the importance of thus refuting the claims which infidelity makes to superior enlightenment. It may be thought, perhaps, that the criticisms they contain are out of date, now that Spencerism is dead, and Darwinism discredited. But though biological theories which reigned supreme a few years ago have been abandoned or modified by "men of light and leading," their influence still prevails with the general public and in response to appeals from several quarters the chapters in question are here reproduced. - Summary by Preface