224 HAS SCIENCE DISCOVERED GOD? 



his little homocentric picture of creation to a scheme 

 so vast that were it not for his own self-consciousness 

 he might well regard himself as out of the picture. 



Astronomically considered, life is but an incident 

 in the history of a planet. Yet associated with that 

 life in its more conscious forms is an inquiring intel- 

 ligence that suggests its origin. Are we ourselves 

 perhaps a limited expression of an all-pervading con- 

 sciousness? May some spark of such consciousness 

 exist potentially with the smallest units of matter? 

 Electrons, identical so far as we can tell, assemble into 

 different aggregations and produce atoms of widely 

 differing characteristics. Atoms of various elements, 

 in turn, combine to make molecules of substances 

 having properties vastly different from the qualities 

 of the elements themselves. Is it that these same units 

 of which worlds are made are the building blocks of 

 mind? Is the unification of all the lesser units into 

 some super-universe the supreme order of intelligence? 

 If this be so we are ourselves a part of such intelli- 

 gence. 



It is inevitable that a man's reflection on such a 

 universe as we have pictured should react upon his 

 life philosophy. Considering the millions of years 

 in which man has been adapting himself biologically, 

 the transition of his thinking in the last few centuries 

 has been extraordinarily rapid. The demand for re- 

 adjustment of ideas to keep pace with the progress of 

 science was perhaps never more acute than now. We 

 have seen the flat earth and its overarching sky of 

 yesterday metamorphosed into a stellar system of such 

 dimensions in time and space that even the astronomer 



