MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF THE UNIVERSE. 61 
be incomplete, for it will be necessary to omit all but a bare 
mention of the moral and spiritual feelings and experiences of 
men, though these are phenomena of the universe, just as much 
as any physical or chemical actions, and generally lead to actual 
events in the world of matter, as, for instance, when a call to 
the mission field leads to the transport of a human body, with 
clothes and books, across the ocean. 
One of the greatest needs at the present day is, I believe, an 
insistence on the idea of God as the Creator of the universe. 
If this idea were more forcibly brought home to the minds and 
consciences of men, they would perhaps pay more attention 
to religion generally. If the influence of religion has appeared 
to sufier at the hands of science, it has been mainly because 
many have been led to an attitude of doubting through the 
suggestion that scientific investigation has left no place for a 
God as the Creator of the world. With this doubt in their 
hearts, it is easy for men to profess the opinion that there are 
no such things as God’s laws to be obeyed or to be broken. 
But it is becoming more and more plain that so far from 
science leading to any such conclusion, the facts all point in 
the opposite direction, and thus science is more and more 
bearing testimony to the fundamental article of religion. We 
may here quote Lord Kelvin’s statement* that “if you think 
strongly enough, you will be forced by science to believe in 
God, which is the foundation of all religion.” 
§ 3. Lhe Universe and Human Thought—It should be noted, 
before we go further, that the essential character of the universe 
does not depend in the least upon our intellectual conceptions, 
for the universe remains the same whatever may be our indi- 
vidual views concerning it. It is important to bear this in 
mind, because some persons, who have not grasped the distine- 
tion between an hypothesis and a fact, are in danger of imagining 
that these great questions are settled by the pronouncements 
of the popular speaker who is fashionable at the time. The 
distinction between fact and hypothesis must be continually 
remembered in discussing scientific discoveries, for, apart from 
the inevitable errors of observation, the simplest experiment is 
in reality so complex an affair that we can do no more than 
frame an hypothesis which will account for its main features. 
Yet, if the hypothesis is verified when the experiment is 
repeated under a variety of conditions, it acquires a high degree 
of credibility. That is all that we can say. 
* Nineteenth Century, June, 1903, p. 1068. 
