THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



of science but am pointing out that the history of 

 science is the same wayward chronicle of human ef- 

 fort and human mistakes as is that of philosophy and 

 religion. 



What most distinguishes our attitude towards re- 

 ligion from that of the Middle Ages is our disbelief 

 in miracles and our unquestioning reliance on the 

 scientific postulates that all phenomena are continu- 

 ous in time and space, and are the effects of natural 

 causes. As I have used the words spirit and spiritual 

 in this book, not in the vulgar sense of disembodied 

 personalities, but rather as synonyms for the psychic 

 or hyperphysical element as defined by Plato and 

 Aristotle, so I shall not use the word miracle as de- 

 scriptive of the legendary stories of early peoples or 

 as indicative of the supernatural events used to 

 strengthen the faith of the credulous; these for the 

 most part are insignificant and puerile. I mean by 

 miracles those events in the natural world which 

 transcend any known physical or biological law and 

 especially most of the events in the hyperphysical 

 or psychic world. These, I shall claim, are neither 

 confirmed nor disproved by scientific methods, since 

 they lie outside the realm of the rational, and science 

 has discovered no methods of measuring them, or of 

 dealing with them. 



Science does not embrace all phenomena and it has 

 not, for its use, all the criteria of truth. For example, 



C 354 3 



