NATURE 
729 


SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1923. 


CONTENTS. PAGE 
Science and Religion. By J. J. 729 
Seg of Oundle Schooi. By Sir E. 12 Russell 
731 
Civil Engineering Geology. By J. w. G. 732 
Physico-Chemical Themes. 733 
The Trend of Evolution . 735 
Our Bookshelf J : 735 
Letters to the Editor :— 
Dr. Kammerer’s Alytes. (///ustrated.) — Dr. % 
Bateson, F.R.S. 738 
The Light Elements and the Whole Number Rule. -- 
Dr. F. W. Aston, F.R.S. = . 739 
Microphonic Flames.—Dr. Lee de Forest 739 
Molecular and Crystal Symmetry.—Dr. John w. 
Evans, F.R.S. ; G. Shearer and W. T. Astbury 740 
The Mechanism of the Cochlea.—Prof. H. E. Roaf 741 
An Einstein Paradox.—Prof. R. W. Genese 742 
Longevity in a Fern.—Dr. F. J. Allen 742 
The Recording Ultramicrometer. (With Diagrams. ) 
—John J. Dowling 742 
A Permanent Image on Clear Glass.—Dr. T. J. 
Baker 743 
The Transmission of Speech by Light. By Prof. 
A. O. Rankine . 744 
Recent Experiments in Aerial Surveying by Vertical 
Photographs. (///ustrated.)—II. By or B. Melvill 
Jones and Major J. C. Griffiths i ay 
Obituary :— 
Col. G. F. Pearson . 748 
ee C. H. Ryder. By Sir Napier Shaw, 
749 
Current Tonics "and Events 749 
Our Astronomical Column 752 
Research Items 753 
The Rockefeller Foundation’ Ss Gift of the ‘Institute of 
Anatomy to University College, London. (///us- 
trated.) - Jes 
plications of Physics to the Ceramic Industries 757 
Te Meteorology of Scott’s Last eet 758 
Movements of the Earth’s Crust. : - RS 
The Steel Works of Hadfields, Ltd. Visir or 
H.R.H. THe Prince oF WALES 759 
Technology and Schools . . . 760 
University and Educational Intelligence . 760 
Societies and Academies : 761 
Official Publications oe 764 
Diary of Societies . : 764 


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NO. 2796, VOL. 111] 
Science and Religion. 
OES a description of the world afford any evidence 
of the existence of God? This is the subject of 
a symposium in the April issue of the Hibbert Journal, 
and the discussion has particular interest for biologists. 
A description of the world is not merely a statement 
of those conceptions that we call natural laws, but it 
is also an interpretation of what Prof. Whitehead calls 
the “passage of Nature ’—the evolutionary career. 
In this passage the various points of view taken by 
the writers are these : there is an increasing enrichment 
of what we may call the content of Nature ; there is 
progress ; and there is an effort or striving against 
something. 
The first interpretation is made by Dr. J. S. Haldane 
in an argument of sustained power. The world of 
our experience may be known to us through the 
mathematical sciences, through physics, and through 
biology. The conception attained through pure mathe- 
matics is bare; it need not include objects, and it 
deals typically with the space and time relationships 
between objects. These relations, or differential 
equations, need not have physical meanings. The 
world, from this point of view, has form but no content. 
To construct it out of pure extension, that is, to give 
all natural laws geometrical meanings, is the tendency 
of the later relativists ; thus the world is deprived of 
substance, or at least, the nature of this substance is 
ignored. Next come the physical sciences, enriching 
this conception by inserting objects into the world 
but ignoring the plain fact that its natural laws are 
only working hypotheses which have limited practical 
meanings. They are statements of the ways in which 
we can act on our physical environment. They are 
descriptions of our increased power over Nature. 
Then come organisms—which add something new to 
the world. This conclusion depends on Dr. Haldane’s 
difference from the majority of the biologists of the 
last generation. “ Weighed in the balance of accurate 
quantitative investigation the mechanistic theory of 
life has been found wanting.’’ What the Victorian 
materialism has envisaged in the organism has been 
“a vista of mechanisms,” one inside the other, so to 
speak ; postulated rather than really observed ; in- 
capable of explaining organic functioning, to say 
nothing of reproduction and behaviour. The con- 
ception is even inadequate as a means of investigation, 
and it is being replaced by other methods—for example, 
Dr. E. S. Russell’s psycho-biology. Thus mechanism 
fails and in this failure we recognise a further en- 
richment of Nature. Biology becomes a science with 
its own fundamental conception of life. 
Lastly, there is the self-conscious human personality. 
