l82 UNIYERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



by conceiving it. An identification of the faith with the ideas by 

 which it is represented is very natural. 



It is true that no scientist is ever guilty of confusing his working 

 hypotheses with his conception of them. One reason is that he is 

 professionally interested in conceptions. Reconstructing concep- 

 tions is a large part of business. If he were convinced that his 

 conception of the facts he knows were adequate, he would cease to 

 be a scientist; for there would be no more scientific work for him 

 to do, unless perhaps the gathering of new facts. But there is 

 another reason. The working hypotheses of science are based upon 

 objective experiences. 



Experiences are insistent things. The scientist feels sure that no 

 one of his successful working hypotheses can possibly be overthrown 

 by any theory; for that theory must meet and include all established 

 facts or die before seeing the light. The church has not quite the 

 same assurance, though perhaps she ought to have. Her working 

 hypotheses are not statements of unvarying experience. Their 

 subject-matter is the meaning of the universe for man and man's 

 destiny in it. They deal with the unseen. It is perilously easy to 

 regard the Christian faith as a philosophy, and therefore incapable of 

 being translated into new forms of thought. 



To take concrete examples: The rising and setting of the sun is 

 a fact which we can see. The scientist feels very sure that no astro- 

 nomical idea which negatives the fact can ever gain acceptance. The 

 Copernican astronomy would never have been heard of if it did not 

 give an adequate explanation of the rising and setting of the sun. On 

 the other hand, the incarnation, the ascension of Christ, the second 

 advent, and God's oversight of the deeds of man are not matters of 

 immediate experience; though in the seventeenth century they were 

 (as they still are) vital portions of the Christian faith. The Ptole- 

 maic astronomy allowed for these portions of the Christian faith. It 

 admitted of very definite conceptions of them. These conceptions the 

 new astronomy destroyed and it was not clear at first that new con- 

 ceptions could be constructed which should both be in harmony with 

 the new astronomy and serve all the practical purposes of the old. 



