INTRODUCTION xxxix 



involved correction of a possible error in the speed of 

 light — perhaps a mile in 186,000 miles a second. Sci- 

 ence, also, hath its consecrated followers. 



The results of the labors of research-men are before 

 us in a multitude of practical everyday applications. It 

 is probably true that we could not have had a science 

 without a religion; but it is true, also, that we could 

 not have had an applied religion as we know it to-day 

 without a science. No one doubts that the vast ex- 

 panses of the universe, disclosed by giant telescopes, 

 exist. No one doubts the miracles performed by radio 

 activity. No one doubts the marvels of plant and 

 animal life revealed by long, patient explorations in 

 the field of biology. In other words when science an- 

 nounces a discovery the average man accepts the dis- 

 covery, because the method of the scientist is not to 

 announce the fact until it has been proved. Science 

 has been mistaken, and will be again. But the point 

 is this, its method of procedure is sound and begets 

 confidence, and its motive is honest and often self- 

 effacing. 



We have said that science disclaims the Intention 

 of searching for God. In reality science cannot help 

 searching for God in every minutest action it makes, 

 because it is a search for reality; and a search for 

 reality always is a search for God. So we have the 

 paradox of investigators engaging with skill, diligence, 

 often self-denial, in a search they are hardly aware 

 they are engaging in; and which, strangely enough, yet 

 not so strangely either, in the last two or three years, 

 has brought them square up against the precise prob- 

 lem with which religion and philosophy so long have 

 been struggling. 



