ROBERT A. MILLIKAN 39 



it was twenty-five years ago. This generalizing fur- 

 ther than the observed facts warrant; this tendency to 

 assume that our finite minds have at any time attained 

 to a complete understanding even of the basis of the 

 physical universe, this sort of blunder has been made 

 over and over again in all periods of the world's his- 

 tory, and in all domains of thought. It has been the 

 chief sin of philosophy, the gravest error of religion, 

 and the worst stupidity of science — this assumption 

 of unpossessed knowledge, this dogmatic assertiveness, 

 sometimes positive, sometimes negative, about matters 

 concerning which we have no knowledge. 



If, as we pass from the seven-year-old to the thirty- 

 year-old stage of our racial development, our concep- 

 tions of God become less childishly simple, more vague 

 and indefinite, it is because we begin to realize that 

 our finite minds have only just begun to touch the 

 borders of the ocean of knowledge and understand- 

 ing. "Canst thou by searching find out God?" 



The prophet Micah said, twenty-five hundred years 

 ago, "What doth the Lord require of thee but to do 

 justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy 

 God?" Modern science of the real sort is learning 

 to walk humbly with its God. And in learning that 

 lesson it is contributing something to religion. 



