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HOW SCIENCE CHANGES OUR VISION 

 OF GOD 



By Sir J. Arthur Thomson 



FROM time to time the progress of science has 

 made the world new to man. Thus, to take a 

 familiar case, the scientific world became new 

 when the Copernican doctrine prevailed and it was 

 recognised that the earth revolves around the sun, and 

 not vice versa; that our solar system, in other words, 

 is heliocentric not geocentric. Or, again, the world 

 became new when Newton linked the falling apple to 

 the passing moon, and stated his universal Law of 

 Gravitation, which not only unified the cosmos, but 

 freed vast stretches of it from all thought of caprice. 

 It was a breath of this new world with Its "reign of 

 law" that led the caustic poet to ask: "Shall gravita- 

 tion cease when you go by?" Another new world 

 emerged when It was realised that In ordinary terres- 

 trial operations, no matter Is ever lost, though it may 

 entirely change Its guise. To Lavoisier's measured 

 demonstration of the Conservation of Matter, Joule 

 and others added the great generalisation of the Con- 

 servation of Energy; and the scientific world became 

 new afresh. From this there has been no relapse, 

 though the two ideas of conservation are nowadays 

 subsumed In one, and though certain modifications 

 have necessarily followed recent discoveries like radlo- 



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