EDWIN G. CONKLIN 87 



sponsibility. As a matter of fact, we know that our 

 wills are not perfectly free. Heredity and early en- 

 vironment have set bounds about us that we may not 

 pass; but within those bounds we have a certain 

 amount of freedom. We are partly free and partly 

 bound. Within certain limits we may choose between 

 alternatives that are open to us and may be held re- 

 sponsible for making right choices, but we cannot di- 

 rectly make the alternatives or always choose between 

 them when they are offered. In short, human free- 

 dom and responsibility are relative and not absolute, 

 and the truth of this is recognized by all civilized so- 

 cieties. The concept of universal law as applied to 

 the world, to the individual or to society, does not, 

 when properly understood, destroy faith in God, nor 

 human freedom and responsibility. 



Causes of Unbelief 



The real causes of loss of religious faith on the 

 part of many scientists and scholars are to be found 

 primarily in a revolt against ecclesiasticism, literalism, 

 formalism; and against an insistence upon the faith of 

 childhood as contrasted with the results of science. If 

 representatives of religion insist upon these as the 

 essentials of religious faith then scientists and scholars 

 generally will be unbelievers. 



Other causes are found in the error that anything 

 is "explained" when it Is reduced to a principle or 

 law, and that a law or principle Is Itself a cause; that 

 law and mechanism require no explanation; that a 

 scientific analysis is ever complete, and that there are 

 no unknown factors in such analyses; that there are 

 no phenomena in the universe which cannot be sub- 



