88 HAS SCIENCE DISCOVERED GOD? 



jected to present methods of scientific inquiry; tiiat 

 scientific determinism is fatalism. 



Perhaps more than anything else unbelief and pes- 

 simism are caused by the thought that there is no plan 

 or purpose in the universe and that everything is the 

 result of chance and accident. Undoubtedly chance 

 has played a large part in the evolution of worlds and 

 of organisms, but I cannot believe that It has played 

 the only part. Chance has determined many things 

 in our individual lives, but nevertheless our lives are 

 not purposeless. There are ends and aims in the life of 

 an amoeba or in one of our blood corpuscles, and much 

 more in our conscious lives. I cannot understand how 

 any one can take the long view of nature that science 

 reveals, can follow the course of evolution from the 

 formation of atoms to the development of man and 

 consciousness, and still believe that it is all without 

 plan or purpose. It seems to me much more probable 

 that matter, energy, life and mind, — that the princi- 

 ples, laws and, in general, the order of nature are evi- 

 dences of the immanence of some plan in this uni- 

 versal mechanism which we call "nature." 



Here Is after all the point from which one takes the 

 path that leads to hope or to despair. If there Is no 

 purpose In the universe, then indeed there Is no God 

 and no good. But if there is a plan, if there is pur- 

 pose in nature and in human life, then we may feel 

 confident that it is the Imperfection of our own men- 

 tal vision that leads us sometimes to cry "Vanity of 

 vanities, all Is vanity." No one can furnish scientific 

 proof of the existence or nature of God, but atheism 

 leads to fatalism and despair, while theism leads to 

 faith and hope and love. "By their fruits ye shall 



