144 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 448. 



In your article on the discussion which 

 has followed these statements you declare 

 that this (the opinions I have quoted 

 above) is 'a momentous conclusion,' and 

 that it is a vital point in the relation of 

 science to religion. 



I do not agree with that view of the 

 matter, although I find Lord Kelvin's state- 

 ments full of interest. So far as I have 

 been able to ascertain, after many years in 

 which these matters have engaged my at- 

 tention, there is no relation, in the sense 

 of a connection or influence, between sci- 

 ence and religion. There is, it is true, 

 often an antagonistic relation between 

 exponents of science and exponents of 

 religion when the latter illegitimately mis- 

 represent or deny the conclusions of scien- 

 tific research or try to prevent its being 

 carried on, or, again, when the former 

 presume, by magnifying the extremely 

 limited conclusions of science, to deal in 

 a destructive spirit with the very existence 

 of those beliefs and hopes which are called 

 'religion.' Setting aside such excusable 

 and purely personal collisions between 

 rival claimants for authority and power, 

 it appears to me that science proceeds on 

 its path without any contact with religion, 

 and that religion has not, in its essential 

 qualities, anything to hope for, or to fear, 

 from science. 



The whole order of nature, including 

 living and lifeless matter — man, animal 

 and gas — is a network of mechanism the 

 main features and many details of which 

 Tiave been made more or less obvious to the 

 wondering intelligence of mankind by the 

 labor and ingenuity of scientific investiga- 

 tors. But no sane man has ever pre- 

 tended, since science became a definite 

 'body of doctrine, that we know, or ever 

 can hope to know or conceive of the possi- 

 bility of knowing, whence this mechanism 

 lias come, why it is there, whither it is 

 going, and what there may or may not be 



beyond and beside it which oui- senses are 

 incapable of appreciating. These things 

 are not 'explained' by science, and never 

 can be. 



Lord Kelvin speaks of a 'fortuitous con- 

 course of atoms,' but I must confess that 

 I am quite unable to apprehend what he 

 means by that phrase in the connection in 

 which he uses it. It seems to me impos- 

 sible that by 'fortuitous' he can mean 

 something which is not determined by 

 natural cause and therefore is not part of 

 the order of nature. When an ordinaiy 

 man speaks of a concourse having arisen 

 'by chance' or 'fortuitously,' he means 

 merely that the determining conditions 

 which have led by natural causation to its 

 occurrence were not known to him before- 

 hand; he does not mean to assert that it 

 has arisen without the operation of such 

 determining conditions; and I am quite 

 unable to understand how it can be main- 

 tained that 'the concourse of atoms' form- 

 ing a crystal, or even a lump of mud, is in 

 any philosophic sense more correctly de- 

 scribed as 'fortuitous' than is the con- 

 course of atoms which has given rise to a 

 sprig of moss or an animal. It would be 

 a matter of real interest to many of your 

 readers if Lord Kelvin would explain more 

 precisely what he means by the distinction 

 which he has, somewhat dogmatically, laid 

 down between the formation of a crystal as 

 'fortuitous' and the formation of an or- 

 ganism as due to 'creative and directive 

 purpose. ' 



I am not misrepresenting what Lord 

 Kelvin has said on this subject when I 

 say that he seems to have formed the con- 

 ception of a creator who first of all, with- 

 oiit care or foresight, has produced what 

 we call ' matter, ' with its necessary proper- 

 ties, and allowed it to aggregate and crys- 

 tallize as a painter might allow his pig- 

 ments to run and intermingle on his pal- 

 ette; and then, as a second effort, has 



