150 MATTER, ENERGY, CONSCIOUSNESS, SPIRIT 



application to the material and utilitarian interests 

 of men, that its revelation is both clear and inspir- 

 ing-, "a source not merely of material convenience 

 but of spiritual elevation," as Mr Arthur Balfour 

 has said, is, however, now being- more generally 

 understood. 



Science has wrecked beyond repair certain 

 dogmas and beliefs g-enerally current prior to the 

 development of the doctrine of evolution on the 

 biological side. That doctrine has completely 

 reversed the traditional outlook of men and turned 

 their highest interest from the contemplation of 

 the past to the problems of the future. But physical 

 science, the science, in the first instance, of the 

 inanimate world, contemporaneously with these 

 great developments of biology, has contributed in its 

 doctrine of energy an advance of direct and living 

 human interest certainly not less, and possibly even 

 of greater fundamental importance than the con- 

 ception of evolution. It, therefore, is almost a 

 duty of the scientific man, however little he may 

 desire or feel himself competent for the task, to 

 attempt to rebuild as well as destroy, and to state, 

 so far as he can, what is his view of the matters 

 in which hitherto the priest and the philosopher 

 have, with insufficient knowledge of external nature, 

 been left to themselves. Such a synthesis has been 

 hitherto attempted, if at all, from the standpoint 

 of biological science, with which, I need scarcely 

 say, I am totally unfitted to deal. In approaching 

 it from the purely physical standpoint, one has the 

 very great advantage that one starts from a basis 

 which now may be considered beyond controversy 

 or cavil, and which even the phenomena of life cannot 

 complicate or make obscure. On the other hand, 

 the corresponding disadvantage is that one starts 

 farther off from and has a greater distance to go 



