246 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



intellectual aspect of the problem, the credal side. 

 For one thing, science has more direct concern with 

 it than with the others ; for another, more con- 

 tinuous and startling alterations have had to be made 

 in it ; and finally, the actual problem is there felt 

 most acutely at the present moment. 



What, then, is the problem ? In the terms of our 

 definition of religion, it is in its most general terms as 

 follows : Man has to live his life in a world in which 

 he is confronted with forces and powers other than 

 his own. He is a mere animalcule in comparison 

 with the totality of these forces, his life a second 

 in comparison with their centuries. By his mental 

 constitution, he of necessity attempts to formulate 

 some intelligible account of the constitution of the 

 world and its relation to himself — or should we 

 rather say in so far as it is in relation to himself? — 

 and so we have a myth, a doctrine, or a creed. 



At the present moment, as we have already seen, 

 there appears to be an irreconcilable conflict between 

 orthodox Christianity and orthodox Natural Science. 

 The one asserts the existence of an omnipotent, 

 omniscient, personal God — creator, ruler, and refuge. 

 The other, by reducing ever more and more of natural 

 phenomena to what we please to call natural laws — 

 in other words, to orderly processes proceeding in- 

 evitably from the known constitution and properties 

 of matter — has robbed such a God of ever more and 

 more of his realm and possible power ; until finally, 



