46 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



sincerely resort to it, prayer does not, at all events upon 

 special occasions, invoke a Power which checks and aug- 

 ments the descent of rain, which changes the force and 

 direction of winds, which 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 ordi- 

 nary course of things. To any person who deals sin- 

 cerely with the subject, and refuses to blur his moral 

 vision by intellectual 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 examina- 

 tion from which all our present knowledge of the phys- 

 ical universe is derived. And if his researches lead him 

 to a conclusion adverse to its claims if his inquiries 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 un- 

 just'* 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 sys- 

 tem 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 



