"We now witness the constructive work on a foundation that will endure through the ages. That foundation is the god of science - revealed to us in terms that will harmonize with our intelligence"
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Fiske is trying to pull off a cultural merger: keep the emotional architecture of religion while swapping in science as the load-bearing deity. The phrasing is openly ceremonial - "witness", "constructive work", "foundation", "endure through the ages" - the language of cathedrals and constitutions. He wants his audience to feel they are present at a civilizational turning point, not just adopting a method but joining a faith with permanence and moral gravity.
Calling it the "god of science" is the sly hinge. It flatters believers by conceding that human beings need something like God - a unifying story, an object of reverence - while reassuring the modern skeptic that this new God will be "revealed" in a form compatible with reason. That word "harmonize" signals the real agenda: defusing the 19th-century anxiety that Darwin, industrial modernity, and higher criticism had turned the cosmos cold. Fiske offers a warm compromise, a theology that promises scientific authority without spiritual homelessness.
The subtext is also defensive. Science in the late Victorian moment wasn’t only discovery; it was social power, a rival institution to the church. By framing science as a deity that will "endure", Fiske argues against the idea that scientific truths are provisional and destabilizing. He’s canonizing them, building a sanctuary for progress. In doing so, he reveals a quintessentially American aspiration of his era: modernize belief without admitting you’ve abandoned it.
Calling it the "god of science" is the sly hinge. It flatters believers by conceding that human beings need something like God - a unifying story, an object of reverence - while reassuring the modern skeptic that this new God will be "revealed" in a form compatible with reason. That word "harmonize" signals the real agenda: defusing the 19th-century anxiety that Darwin, industrial modernity, and higher criticism had turned the cosmos cold. Fiske offers a warm compromise, a theology that promises scientific authority without spiritual homelessness.
The subtext is also defensive. Science in the late Victorian moment wasn’t only discovery; it was social power, a rival institution to the church. By framing science as a deity that will "endure", Fiske argues against the idea that scientific truths are provisional and destabilizing. He’s canonizing them, building a sanctuary for progress. In doing so, he reveals a quintessentially American aspiration of his era: modernize belief without admitting you’ve abandoned it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Science |
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