178 HAS SCIENCE DISCOVERED GOD? 



tience to intelligence, and finally to reason in Man. 

 As Lotze said, there is in Organic Evolution "an on- 

 ward advancing melody." 



Descriptive Naturalism 



It seems very unlikely that scientific method will 

 ever go back from the descriptive naturalism which 

 has become one of its characteristics in modern times. 

 That is to say, science seeks to describe the nature, 

 continuance, and history of what it studies in terms of 

 factors which are experimentally verifiable in the sys- 

 tems observed. It cannot dogmatically say, of course, 

 that it has an exhaustive knowledge of these resident 

 factors, but it must do its best with what it knows; and 

 when that affords a basis for prediction, it is safe to 

 say that there has been some approximation to reality. 

 But an adherence to the aims and methods of descrip- 

 tive naturalism does not mean any dogmatism as to 

 interpretative naturalism. To answer the scientific 

 question "How?" in terms of empirical naturalistic 

 factors — the Lowest Common Denominators available 

 — does not preclude trying to answer the religious 

 question "Why?" in terms of mystical or transcen- 

 dental factors — the Greatest Common Measures we 

 can think of. Of which the greatest is the idea of 

 God. Thus at one time we may seek to analyse the 

 biological and psycho-biological factors that have op- 

 erated in the Ascent of Man, while at another time 

 we may seek to interpret Man as an instalment of the 

 Creator's purpose. The tax on scientific evolutionism 

 is that it leads some minds to banish God from His 

 universe. For the apparent satisfactoriness of the in- 

 quiry into immediate efficient causes leads many to 



