SIR J. ARTHUR THOMSON 171 



higher to a lower expression. A revelation, to use the 

 old and wise phraseology, has often been appreciated 

 for a time and then become blurred, as when the idea 

 of Creative Purpose led to a very anthropomorphic 

 picture of a Divine Artificer. Theoretically, man's 

 idea of God as Creator should be grander to-day than 

 ever before, for man's outlook on the world is 

 grander; yet in many ways the Nature-Psalmists were 

 a long way ahead of us. 



In thinking of man's religious activities as prompted 

 by the strains involved in reaching the limits of ordi- 

 nary intellectual, emotional, and practical endeavour, 

 we must not fall into the error of supposing that re- 

 ligion is simply a human edifice. For were this the 

 case we should simply be sending tendrils around ten- 

 drils. The centre of religion is a belief in a spiritual 

 reality beyond the everyday world, and the largest fact 

 in religious experience is the reward that comes to 

 man when he opens his heart to the Supreme Reality. 

 Beauty is a reality and music is a reality, and their in- 

 fluence is well known; so, all through the ages, man 

 has been rewarded by the beauty, the music, the sun- 

 shine of the Supreme Reality to which he opens his 

 heart. The view that this is all an illusion does not 

 seem to fit the facts of history. 



An analogy may be useful. Science Is a human 

 achievement; the investigator sees Nature In the mir- 

 ror of his mind; his concepts are of his own making 

 and he uses many devices which are frankly symbols. 

 Thus while an atom has reality, just like a visible par- 

 ticle, since there are devices for demonstrating Its path 

 through a particular experimental field, the constitu- 

 tion of an atom, sometimes with an intricate constella- 



