170 HAS SCIENCE DISCOVERED GOD? 



appeal to mystical realities beyond the horizon of 

 everyday experience. Tendrils of some sort are sent 

 out into an Unseen World, very crudely pictured to 

 begin with, but becoming in the course of ages, less 

 magical and more mystical, less anthropomorphic and 

 more spiritual. On man's side the common feature 

 has always been straining at a limit — of intelligence, 

 emotion, or practical endeavour; and these limits re- 

 main to-day as the springs of religion. Most men still 

 feel that they cannot "make sense" of the world and 

 their place in it without some religious belief, such as 

 faith in a Divine Purpose, while others cannot hold the 

 cups of feeling, whether of joy or of sorrow, without 

 trembling with religious emotion. Man's mastery of 

 natural forces has increased so greatly in civilised 

 countries that the practical pathway to religion is not 

 much frequented to-day, except by those who take 

 seriously the problem of living a good life. On the 

 whole, however, it remains true that religious activity 

 consists of tendrils — intellectual, emotional, and prac- 

 tical — which man sends out towards the Absolute; and 

 the fact that some people find no need of these may 

 not mean much more than that some people are colour- 

 blind, and others tone-deaf, and others immune to 

 poetry. At a higher level, no doubt, are those brave 

 spirits who occupy a determined Positivist position — 

 the clear-headed lovable Sadducees of to-day. 



The idea of God is or should be the highest expres- 

 sion of man's mind, and it is a fact of history that it 

 has been from time to time refined and enlarged with 

 man's increasing understanding and appreciation of 

 the world, though often it has relapsed again from a 



