176 HAS SCIENCE DISCOVERED GOD? 



gard to what are, for the time being at least, unex- 

 plained irreducibles, such as electricity or protoplasm. 

 Thus it seems to us very doubtful if we gain anything 

 by continuing to quote the old astronomer's saying that 

 the Laws of Nature which he studied seemed to him 

 to be the Thoughts of God. Moreover, most of the 

 scientific laws are only tentative and provisional for- 

 mulations, trustworthy approximations to reality, but 

 still only approximations. It may seem a strange 

 thing to say, but there is reason to doubt whether we 

 know as yet more than a very few of the Laws of 

 Nature. In other words, most of our Laws, useful, 

 reliable, and illuminating as they are, will require re- 

 statement as analysis becomes more penetrating. 



Positive Changes 



The greatest change in the modern vision of God, 

 a change for the better, though with a tax to pay, is 

 due to Darwin, who, more than any one else enabled 

 man to realise the Creator as the Author of Evolu- 

 tion. Nature and Man are long results of time, not 

 the finished outcome of a creative fiat. Both are still 

 to be regarded as expressions of the Divine power, or 

 will, or purpose; but they have been wrought out in 

 the course of long-drawn-out processes of evolution, 

 whose operative factors can be in some measure dis- 

 cerned and understood. Modern science starts with 

 an Institution of a primary Order of Nature, neces- 

 sarily unaccounted for scientifically, though well de- 

 serving the old name Creation; but from that rela- 

 tively simple beginning, say a Nebula, there has gradu- 

 ally arisen all the glory of the heavens and all the 

 wonder of life. Whatever be the first picture that we 



