1 6 Science Religion and Reality 



deities. But what are we to say about a universe reduced without 

 remainder to collections of electric charges radiating energy 

 through a hypothetical ether ? Thus to set limits to reality 

 must always be the most hazardous of speculative adventures. 

 To do so by eliminating the spiritual is not only hazardous but 

 absurd. For if we are directly aware of anything, it is of ourselves 

 as personal agents ; if anything can be proved by direct experiment 

 it is that we can, in however small a measure, vary the " natural " 

 distribution of matter and energy. We can certainly act on our 

 environment, and as certainly our action can never be adequately 

 explained in terms of entities which neither think, nor feel, nor 

 purpose, nor know. It constitutes a spiritual invasion of the 

 physical world : — it is a miracle. 



XIV 



To me therefore it seems that in the present state of our 

 knowledge or (if you prefer it) of our ignorance, we have no 

 choice but to acquiesce provisionally in an unresolved dualism. 

 Our experience has a double outlook. The first we may call 

 material. It brings us face to face with such subjects as elec- 

 tricity, mass, motion, force, energy, and with such manifestations 

 of energy as ethereal radiation The second is spiritual. The 

 first deals with objects which are measurable, calculable, capable 

 (up to a point) of precise definition. The second deals with the 

 immeasurable, the incalculable, the indefinable and (let me add) 

 the all-important. The first touches the fundamentals of science ; 

 the second is intimately connected with religion. Yet different 

 as they seem, both are real. They belong to the same universe ; 

 they influence each other ; somewhere and somehow they must 

 be in contact along a common frontier. 



But where is that frontier to be drawn ? And how are we 

 to describe the relation between these co-terminous provinces of 

 reality ? This is perhaps a question for metaphysics rather than 

 for religion or science ; and some day, perhaps, metaphysics 

 may provide us with a satisfying answer. In the meanwhile, I 

 may conclude this Introduction at a less ambitious level — con- 

 cerning myself rather with the relations between religion and 

 science in the practice of life, than with any high problems of 

 speculative philosophy. 



