CHAPTER I THE INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE ON MODERN RELIGIOUS THOUGHT Let us first ask: What is science? In the popular sense the sense in which it is used in Mr. McNair's will-the term science refers to the methods and the results of the Natural Sciences. It is that body of knowledge made up of verified and verifiable facts and their relationships which pertain to Nature and her processes, and to Man insofar as he is immersed in the physical order. It is "systematized knowledge of sense phenomena." In a larger sense science is all verified and organized knowledge. In this ampler meaning it would include all the activities of religion which report themselves in the current of affairs. But we shall employ the word throughout these lectures in the narrower and popular significance. We are certainly living in a period that is preeminently an Age of Science. It is said that there have been more scientific discoveries in the past hundred years than in all preceding centuries. Yet the most precious gift of science to the world has not been her marvelous inventions, her amazing discoveries; her supreme bestowment has been the purpose, the spirit, and the method she has introduced into our thinking. Her purpose is definite. She aims at nothing less than a mastery over nature by the discovery of its laws. In this she has met with such extraordinary success that there has been born into the world an inextinguishable hope that one by one the old enemies of our race-pestilence, poverty, superstition-will be overcome, and that the conditions of existence will be more tolerable. She expects to achieve her dominion over the forces of nature by a definite procedure; i.e., by discovering and verifying facts and setting them in their proper re lationships. Then the technical arts will take the discovered facts and laws and put them to the service of man. The precise methods of science differ according to the field of investigation. But in every department she uses those "methods which are established in the confidence of men whose occupation it is to investigate truth." Yet the supreme contribution of science has not been her results or her method, but her spirit. I know of no finer statement of this spirit than in Huxley's memorable letter to Kingsley: "Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I resolved at all risks to do this." The predominant trait of Huxley's mind has been described as "a passion for veracity." Absolute openmindedness, the utter elimination in every investigation of all motives save love of truth, the subordination of all personal preferences and dislikes that might weigh in the balance, this is the scientific spirit. How similar it is to the religious spirit is apparent. Both demand complete selfsurrender as indispensable to success; both require the receptiveness of a little child; both command their servitors to subordinate all material advantage to the higher interests; both enjoin utter mental integrity; together they seek to control the world for the sake of humanity. The rewards also are similar. Working in this spirit of complete consecration to truth, the genuinely scientific mind attains a conviction of the order, the justice, the vastness of the universe, which in moments of supreme discovery, changes into an ecstacy that is akin to the mystic's vision of God. Witness Newton's rapture as he approached the end of his calculations which were to demonstrate the law of gravitation, or Darwin's exaltation of mind as he saw the verification of his theory of development through natural |