xiv CONTENTS 



IV Modern Physical Science : Its Rela- 

 tion TO Religion by Heber D. 

 Curtis 51 



Modern science demands theories dealing with the 

 transcendental. . . . The two fundamental con- 

 cepts of religion — Viewpoint of older scientist 

 was "lore of things heard" — His measuring rods — 

 The older science could not accept entities which 

 stood by themselves — Conklin's "diabolical in- 

 genuity." . . . Must modern science call the great- 

 er facts unknowable? — A definition of science — 

 It cannot be limited; and the cosmos must be or- 

 derly — Science is admitting the formerly hated 

 element of hypothesis — Newton's position that the 

 first cause is not mechanical — Gravitation giving 

 way to relativity. . . . No theory has an infinite 

 life — Science has no hierarchy for inerrant pro- 

 nouncements — Preachers of pleasant, or unpleas- 

 ant, certainties — But the laws of science, also, 

 were divinely ordained — Illustrations — Men of 

 research, now, admit continual change — Religion 

 and science, to-day, are chastened — Age-old laws 

 of thought are applicable to physical theory — The 

 laws of probability. . . . May we invoke a deity 

 for those who write? — Lest we fail to see the 

 forest for the trees — An error to attribute modern 

 change entirely to science — Science has not 

 changed religion in Its absolute sense — Certain 

 infinite concepts are eternal — The oneness of the 

 idea of God — Effect of modern science — Univer- 

 sality of religion not a scientific argument; neither 

 is martyrdom; neither is inspiration. . . . The 

 one scientific argument for a Supreme Mind is 

 based on analogy from the majestic universe — 

 The limit science places in its own field, and 

 the field of the spirit — Reason for believing in 

 gravitation was that we had to have some hy- 

 pothesis — The alternative hypothesis of curved 

 space does not, in method, offend philosophy or 

 religion — Illustrations — Is Deity unknowable? . . . 

 Telescopes do not reach to infinity — The argu- 

 ments of analogy and probability — The finite niay 

 speculate about the infinite but may not conceive 

 it — Science only limited by the universe — Agnos- 

 ticism is dead — A lack of finality cannot prevent 

 one from thinking — Science warns religion against 

 finality — To state a fixed idea of God is unscien- 

 tific — The spirit of man is needed to complete our 

 theory of the universe — Eddington's achievement 

 in The Nature of the Physical IVorld. . . . But 



