THE RELIGION OF NATUEE 



A little while ago "A Freethinker" whose 

 name, if published, would surprise most of my 

 readers was good enough to write to me that he 

 had been struck by the " confident religious note " 

 which seemed to inspire some of my writings, and 

 he wanted to know how I could reconcile the 

 study of nature with belief in religion. 



As a very able controversialist he allowed me, 

 in reply, to sum up his closely-typewritten pages 

 in the sentence that nature as we see it from 

 the human point of view appears intensely cruel 

 and, therefore, incompatible with the theory of 

 the existence of a merciful God. 



This has, indeed, been a great stumbling-block 

 to many good men. 



But, the apparent cruelty of nature having 

 been granted for, indeed, the seeming atrocities 

 which are commonplaces in nature are often al- 

 most too horrid to be described in print I was 

 able to point out that the whole significance of 

 the facts lies in the words " from the human point 

 of view " for, of course, we cannot look at 

 nature from any point of view but our own. 



Now, the human point of view is that of a 

 conscious personality, a being who feels that he 

 has an individual existence apart from his body, 

 and who has the power of contemplating and con- 

 sidering the injuries which his body may suffer, 

 [4] 



