SIR J. ARTHUR THOMSON 175 



tion of all the physical energies would still be physical, 

 whereas, in the words of the catechism, "God is a 

 Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His Being, 

 Wisdom, Power, Holiness, Justice, Goodness, and 

 Truth." The search for a finite God has not justified 

 itself in the past: un Dieu defini, c'est un Dieu fini. 



(d) Science reveals the orderliness of Nature, show- 

 ing that everything is under "the reign of law." Thus 

 the world has become more and more intelligible, and 

 the extent to which this has been achieved is a fact that 

 must be appreciated in a synoptic or philosophical 

 view of the world. Science has a long way to go, but 

 the fact of science, impressive even in its imperfection, 

 must be taken account of and included in the philo- 

 sophical or religious outlook. . . . To many minds it 

 seems in itself indicative of a Divine Purpose. 



The scientific formulation of Laws makes the world 

 more intelligible, but it must be understood that the 

 old view of Natural Laws as having some compelling 

 power of enforcing obedience was a confusion of 

 thought. It persists in such phrases as "obeying the 

 Law of Gravity," but it has been replaced by the un- 

 derstanding that a scientific "law" is the investigator's 

 terse formulation of uniformities of sequence, and that 

 it describes without "explaining" in any deep sense. 

 The only scientific "explanations" are those that we 

 give when we say: This or that phenomenon is an 

 illustration of, say. Laws III and VII. We clear up 

 an obscure occurrence by showing that it is due to 

 powers or processes that we are familiar with in other 

 connections. A natural law enables us to say: "If 

 this, then that"; but in the long run it merely formu- 

 lates events in terms of uniformities established in re- 



