42 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



affects the growth of corn and the health of men and 

 cattle a Power, in short, which, when appealed to 

 under pressing circumstances, produces the precise 

 effects caused by physical energy in the ordinary course 

 of things. To any person who deals sincerely with the 

 subject, and refuses to blur his moral vision by in- 

 tellectual subtleties, this, I think, will appear a true 

 statement of the case. 



It is under this aspect alone that the scientific 

 student, so far as I represent him, has any wish to 

 meddle with prayer. Forced upon his attention as a 

 form of physical energy, or as the equivalent of such 

 energy, he claims the right of subjecting it to those 

 methods of examination from which all our present 

 knowledge of the physical universe is derived. And 

 if his researches lead him to a conclusion adverse to 

 its claims if his enquiries rivet him still closer to the 

 philosophy implied in the words, ' He maketh His sun 

 to shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain 

 upon the just and upon the unjust' he contends only 

 for the displacement of prayer, not for its extinction. 

 He simply says, physical nature is not its legitimate 

 domain. 



This conclusion, moreover, must be based on pure 

 physical evidence, and not on any inherent unreason- 

 ableness in the act of prayer. The theory that the 

 system of nature is under the control of a Being who 

 changes phenomena in compliance with the prayers of 

 men, is, in my opinion, a perfectly legitimate one. It 

 may of course be rendered futile by being associated 

 with conceptions which contradict it; but such concep- 

 tions form no necessary part of the theory. It is a 

 matter of experience that an earthly father, who is 

 at the same time both wise and tender, listens to the 

 requests of his children, and, if they do not ask amiss, 



