8 Science Religion and Reality 



recall the tremendous events of which in the Christian story it is 

 alleged to have been the scene. Surely in the mood which this 

 experience naturally provokes, the contrast between the conclusions 

 of science and the doctrines of religion, though it may leave our 

 reason unperplexed, must somewhat disturb our feelings. 



Before, however, we treat this as more than a passing sense of 

 discord, it would be well to ask what science really has to tell us 

 about the " heavenly host," which man has always looked at with 

 awe and often with adoration. Whence comes the glory of the 

 stars ? What are they in their essential nature ? 



The answer of science to these questions seems sufficiently 

 explicit. The glory of the stars is the joint product of our mental 

 constitution, our nervous system, our eyes, and certain electro- 

 magnetic happenings whose effects are conveyed to us from the 

 remotest parts of space through the ether by which we are sur- 

 rounded. The orbs of heaven, apart from our perception of them, 

 consist of incredibly minute electric charges thinly scattered 

 through the vast and vacant ^ areas, which, in the language of sense 

 perception, we describe as stars. Now it is open to anyone to say 

 that he deems these sparse collections of ultra-microscopic entities 

 as in themselves more interesting and impressive than the spec- 

 tacular splendours which have moved the wonder and the worship 

 of countless generations of his ancestors. There is much to be 

 said for his view. But, however interesting and impressive they 

 may be, it is obviously absurd to regard their " glories " as so 

 remote and inaccessible, framed on so immeasurable a scale, so 

 independent of man's earthly destinies, that we should shrink from 

 the idea that in the general scheme of things (if there be one) the 

 dwellers on earth could by comparison count for much. For, 

 after all, it is to us who dwell on earth that these glories owe their 

 being. If we are nothing, they are nothing. They are born of 

 our terrestrial sensibilities. They have no separate existence. 

 They are not the independent characteristics of the material 

 object itself. Such independent characteristics do indeed exist ; 

 mass, for example, and motion. But among them we ought not 

 to count the " glory of the heavens," nor ought we to belittle tl]e 

 earthly conditions without which no trace of that glory could ever 

 have existed. 



It may be objected that reflections like these, if they have any 

 ^ Vacant as here used means, of course, empty of matter. 



