SCIENTIFIC FAITH ONCE MORE 



endowing all matter with sensation and i)urpose, 

 and thus its passage from one condition to another 

 higher in the scale is easily accomplished. 



Haeckel's manipulation of matter to get life will 

 to many persons seem like a sleight-of-hand trick. 

 One thing disappears, and at a w^ord another entirely 

 different takes its place. Now we see the solid life- 

 less crust of the earth, then we see water and carbon 

 dioxide, then nitrogenous carbon compounds, then, 

 presto! we have albumen or protoplasm, the physi- 

 cal basis of life. Out of protoplasm by a deft use of 

 words comes the monera ; another flourish of his pen 

 and there is that marvel, the living cell, with its 

 nucleus, its chromosome, its centrosome, and all its 

 complicated, intelligent, and self-directed activities. 

 This may be the road the creative energy traveled, 

 since we have to have creative energy whether in 

 matter or apart from it; but our scientific faith hesi- 

 tates until these steps can be repeated in the lab- 

 oratory and life appear at the behest of chemical 

 reactions. 



The scientific faith of mankind — faith in the uni- 

 versality of natural causation — is greatly on the 

 increase; it is waxing in proportion as theological 

 faith is waning; and if love of truth is to be our form 

 of love of God, and if the conservation of human life 

 and the amelioration of its conditions are to be our 

 form of brotherly love, then the religion of a scien- 

 tific age certainly has some redeeming features. 



