202 INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



religious expression. To the author of Psalm 

 xxix, for instance, the thunder-storm that passed 

 over the country was a revelation of God. We 

 miss the whole point if we suppose that the poet 

 meant to say that the thunder was caused by 

 God speaking. "He was not in the passionless 

 and prosaic state of seeking an explanation of the 

 thunder; he was expressing religious experience 

 of the most exalted kind." He was far beyond 

 the confines of science, he has been greatly thrilled 

 by the storm, and in his exalted state of feeling 

 his emotion became religious, he heard God's 

 voice. 



Similarly in Man's emotional relations with 

 his fellows there are heights of joy and depths of 

 sorrow from which the transition to religious 

 feeling is natural, to certain temperaments at 

 least. 



Can it be said that the development of science 

 has in any way affected the frequency with which 

 the emotional pathway to religion is followed? 

 It may be that in the rapid extension of scien- 

 tific thinking and scientific knowledge some have 

 lost the sense of wonder that is due to relative 

 ignorance without gaining that which comes 

 from knowledge. It may also be that the exten- 

 sion of psychological analysis to all manner of 

 emotions has induced a curious self-consciousness 

 that inhibits spontaneity of feeling. 



