Introduction 5 



following essays by Dr. Malinowski. He tells us, in a most inter- 

 esting account of his researches in Melanesia, that among the peoples 

 he visited there was no conflict between religion and science, that 

 their relations were not so much competitive as complementary — 

 religion being called in to fill the gap left vacant by primitive science 

 in the world-outlook of these undeveloped races. A function similar 

 in kind it has no doubt performed at many stages of culture. 

 Where explanation was desired for some interesting event, or class 

 of events, and no "natural" explanation presented itself, a "super- 

 natural " one was invoked to supply the want ; and it inevitably 

 followed that as the knowledge of Nature grew, and with it the 

 number of events for which a natural explanation could be found, 

 the sphere of science increased, and the sphere officially claimed 

 for religion correspondingly diminished. Often indeed the victory 

 was a silent one, gained without noise or strife, and scarcely 

 realised either by victor or vanquished. But it has not always 

 been so. Sometimes the retiring party has fought a determined 

 rearguard action against overwhelming odds, and then the world 

 has been called on to witness that conflict between religion and 

 science to which so much importance has been attached. 



And certainly its importance cannot easily be exaggerated if 

 we proceed on the assumption that science and religion are alterna- 

 tive methods of explaining the universe, between which we are 

 being called upon, with ever-increasing insistence, to make our 

 choice. If this be indeed the fact, the catastrophe foretold by 

 Dr. Draper may really be imminent, and we may after all be 

 nearing the time when the conflict between science and religion 

 will automatically end with the extinction of the weaker combatant. 



But the assumption is wholly without warrant. No doubt 

 mankind have frequently explained natural events by the action 

 of supernatural powers. But 1 find it difficult to believe that at 

 any stage of culture deities were invented merely to account for 

 particular kinds of experience, as the ether has been invented by 

 modern physicists to account for certain electro-magnetic pheno- 

 mena. Doubtless, since deities were available, they were often 

 thus used. But I should suppose that, in spite of appearances 

 to the contrary, primitive religions were no more rooted in 

 a purely scientific desire for causal explanations than is the belief 

 of a modern theologian in a Deity immanent in every phase of 

 nature. 



