How are the themes of industrialism and self-discovery (in other words, science and religion) during the Victorian era revealed in Hard Times by Dickens?

In Dickens's novel Hard Times, the theme of industrialism is juxtaposed against the theme of self-discovery. In the latter, religion and science struggle for ascendancy.
Hard Times is an interesting novel; in it, Dickens highlights the most prominent developments of nineteenth-century England. To understand the novel, we first have to explore its historical underpinnings. Dickens's novel is an unvarnished and candid delineation of the disruptive forces at work in the lives of the English populace.
On one hand, we have the Industrial Age, which heralded the rise of materialism, consumerism, assembly-line production, and labor exploitation. Wealthy industrialists, such as Josiah Bounderby, were wholly committed to their own material welfare. Often, they enjoyed success at the expense of the working-class "hands" they employed. Horrific working conditions at fabric mills, coal mines, and factories led to the disenfranchisement of workers.
In the novel, the factory is at the core of human existence. Coketown (the setting for the story) is unequivocally a town of "red brick." It is a town of machinery, tall chimneys, and smoke. Additionally, it is also a town where nature is as "strongly bricked out as killing airs and gases were bricked in." There are "red-bricked streets" and "red-bricked villas." Even the chapels of "eighteen religious persuasions" are made of "pious" red brick.
Industrialism is emphasized by its stranglehold on every aspect of life; its deadening influence is a blight on creativity, humanity, and self-discovery. The name Coketown is significant. Coke is residual material from the dry distillation of bituminous coal. It is hard and unyielding. Similarly, industrialization robs the populace of its soul: Gradgrind's cold, hard "facts" lie in the dominance of the material at the expense of the spiritual.
Here, it is worth mentioning that many of the political and social ideals championed by Bounderby and his friend, Thomas Gradgrind, originate from prominent nineteenth-century thinkers of Dickens's time. This is revealed in the names of Gradgrind's two children, Adam Smith and Malthus. More on this later.
In the novel, many of the working class eventually join unions in order to negotiate better working conditions and pay structures for themselves. In the midst of this turmoil, science and religion battle for ascendancy in the hearts and minds of the English populace. In the nineteenth century, many saw Darwin's Origin of the Species as an affront to fundamental religious beliefs. Others maintained that science was not antithetical to religion. Still others warned that Darwin's doctrines were a blatant attempt to disrupt the conventions that previously dominated every strata of society.
Now, back to Adam Smith and Malthus. It is significant that Dickens chose to name two of Gradgrind's children after important philosophers. Many have credited Adam Smith as a chief proponent of the theory of self-interest, a central tenet of the Industrial Age. Indeed, the Wealth of Nations champions laissez-faire economics: the state wholly divorced from the market mechanism. Smith's book also advocates specialization and mechanized uniformity: think assembly-line production in which each worker performs a specific task.
Certainly, Smith's doctrine of laissez-faire economics has often been connected to Jeremy Bentham's utilitarian theory of self-interest as the driving influence for societal progress. Meanwhile, Malthus, a popular advocate of population control, championed Darwin's "survival of the fittest" theory, which can be seen in Gradgrind and Bounderby's preoccupation with the material. In the novel, only the strong survive, and the strong are invariably wealthy industrialists and elite statesmen who preside over the working class.
However, many experts have since argued that Adam Smith was not wholly utilitarian in his approach to civilization; they maintained that he was also nonutilitarian in that he rejected the selfishness inherent in materialism (the kind demonstrated by Gradgrind and Bounderby). The Adam Smith Institute describes the main points behind Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. In his treatise, Smith advocated compassion and sympathy as a vehicle for social harmony. Smith's ideas can be seen in the character of Sissy Jupe in the story.
Sissy is the antithesis of characters such as Gradgrind. We can clearly see the conflict between the "survival of the fittest" laissez-faire economics and the moral underpinnings of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments in chapter 9.

Then Mr. M’Choakumchild said he would try me again. And he said, This schoolroom is an immense town, and in it there are a million of inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are starved to death in the streets, in the course of a year. What is your remark on that proportion? And my remark was—for I couldn’t think of a better one—that I thought it must be just as hard upon those who were starved, whether the others were a million, or a million million. And that was wrong, too.
And I find (Mr. M’Choakumchild said) that in a given time a hundred thousand persons went to sea on long voyages, and only five hundred of them were drowned or burnt to death. What is the percentage? And I said, "Miss;" here Sissy fairly sobbed as confessing with extreme contrition to her greatest error; "I said it was nothing."
"Nothing, Sissy?"
"Nothing, Miss—to the relations and friends of the people who were killed."

Sissy keeps making "mistakes" in answering questions because her compassion "gets in the way." Dickens presents the themes of industrialization and self-discovery through means such as symbolism (Coketown as a "red-brick" town) and indirect characterization (conversation between characters like Sissy and Mr. M'Choakumchild who hold divergent views).