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 “BL 240 .D33 1925 
 Darrow, Floyd L. 1880- 
 Through science to God 
 
 
 
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THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2022 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 htips://archive.org/details/throughsciencetoO0darr 
 

 

 
 N CARINA 
 
 THE NEBULA I] 
 
 giant suns. 
 
 ev 
 
 1 for many 
 
 This vast whirlpool of nebular chaos contains sufficient materia 
 
AQ) Vi hing 
 <a 1p 
 NO’ 14 1995 
 
 
 
 
 -arareunuwnon véglash Yonie 
 
 Author of 
 MASTERS OF SCIENCE AND INVENTION 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
CopyriaHt, 1925 
 By THE Bopsps-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 PRINTED AND BOUND 
 BY BRAUNWORTH & CO., INC. 
 BROOKLYN, NEW YORK 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Turoven Science To Gop is an attempt to 
 clarify the confused thought of scores of troubled 
 souls concerning spiritual problems of fundamental 
 significance to this life and the next. It tries to 
 relate the everlasting spiritual truths of sacred lit- 
 erature to the changing forms of modern thought. 
 Recognizing that the revolutionizing discoveries of 
 science are as surely revelations of the Divine In- 
 manence as ever were the words of seer or prophet, 
 it seeks to harmonize the old and the new, to retain 
 the rich heritage of the past and assimilate it to the 
 never-ceasing accumulations of fresh knowledge. 
 The notion that the divine revelations of the eternal 
 truths of the universe ever ceased is utterly false. 
 That God revealed all that is to be known about the 
 origin and development of the universe to infant 
 peoples at the dawn of history is an idea so absurd 
 that we stand amazed at its credence by any in this 
 marvelous age of super-science. The spectacle of 
 grave legislators sitting in solemn council at the 
 close of the first quarter of this twentieth century of 
 enlightenment to pass laws prohibiting the spread of 
 new truth and tending toward the stagnation of 
 thought and the fossilization of error constitutes a 
 situation which verges upon the ridiculous. It harks 
 back to the days of Galileo and the Inquisition. 
 Within ten years we shall wonder that it ever could 
 have happened. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 And still the new knowledge of evolution has 
 proved disquieting to a host of anxious souls. They 
 do not see their way to a belief in it and a reten- 
 tion of their religious faith. That evolution is 
 simply God’s way of working is not yet under- 
 stood. They have not caught a vision of creation 
 as a process of eternity, never ceasing, always 
 rising through larger cycles to higher levels and 
 nobler achievements. Many do not know what evo- 
 lution means. They do not understand that it in no 
 sense deprives them of their God or denies their 
 divine origin. It is a chief purpose of this book to 
 dispel the fogs of misconception and popular preju- 
 dice which temporarily veil the truth regarding this 
 fundamental law of everlasting growth and prog- 
 ress. It is hoped that its thoughtful reading will 
 deepen Christian faith and bring peace of spirit to 
 many a troubled mind. That the teaching of science 
 gives the strongest grounds for belief in God and 
 immortality is the burden of its message. 
 
 The literal interpretation of Scripture and the 
 man-made theology of the Middle Ages no longer 
 harmonize with this new world of scientific dis- 
 covery and ever-enlarging revelations of eternal 
 truth. It is time the intellectual leaders of the world 
 lay aside their groundless fears that the truth about 
 the Bible and its origin will jeopardize the spiritual 
 welfare of the race. The undeniable facts regarding 
 the evolution of our sacred literature should be a 
 part of the common information of people every- 
 where. Nothing can be gained by pretentions to 
 belief in the discredited forms of religious thought. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the firm conviction that the spiritual life of 
 people will be immeasurably deepened by a proper 
 understanding of these new view-points, a frank 
 discussion of the Bible in the light of recent scholar- 
 ship is included in these pages. 
 
 The underlying purpose of this book is religious. 
 There is no conflict between spiritual and scientific 
 truths. They arise from a common source. They 
 strike their roots deep into the same subsoil of 
 fundamental realities. Belief in one form of truth 
 does not discredit faith in the other. And yet the 
 great body of scientific facts, susceptible of exact 
 verification, can not be overthrown by appeals to 
 the literal interpretation of a sacred literature, 
 formulated in an age of scientific ignorance and 
 superstition. Such attempts are worse than useless. 
 They only discredit the cause which they are 
 intended to support. Many leaders of the church, 
 apparently oblivious to the tremendous erisis which 
 confronts them, fatuously seek to retain the husks 
 of an outgrown traditionalism, rather than to 
 square their creeds with the rapidly accumulating 
 body of new truths. And it is undeniably true that 
 many scientists still cling to the crass materialism 
 of a generation ago. In the hope that protest 
 against these false attitudes on the part of intel- 
 lectual leaders will hasten the coming of that day 
 when Christian prophet and scientist alike may 
 unite in a common reverence for the revelations of 
 the Divine Immanence, in whatever form they may 
 appear, this book has been prepared. 
 
 FLoyp L, Darrow 
 
aden 
 
 vot 
 yy 
 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 I From Nesuta to Inuasitep Puanet. . 13 
 
 Il From MytxH anp LEGEND TO THE REIGN OF 
 
 TRA Wee ONG A ee Sn Be Menlo whaa ta Manley, St) Uy Utah ene 
 TY Tar Meanina or Eivonution  . 2.5.) 52 
 HVE PELE REVISE ORV MEANBC Oo Min tpoute urine cath arn ALON) 
 
 V Tse Recorp or Man’s Divinity . . .. 145 
 
 View GopvAND dM MORTALELY Qi tad iene teeta LOS 
 
 VE VScrmNGE/AND THE CHURCH 3 48 4 00 Ww. 196 
 Ve RRAVLIR ACT Bac. Nihon unc nrir ieea ip mul gh ana int Then LG 
 PPX VL ODER: MIRACLES! Myvi ins ie su. veal Gint hin ea) DOO 
 xX THe Bucasoo or Naturan Law . . . 250 
 XI Atoms, MoLEcuLEs anp Eiuectrons . . 263 
 XII Revativiry anp SprriruaL Reauitizs . . 276 
 AIT] THe Farrus of THE ScIENTISTS . . . 287 
 
 LENDER on: Via RE Laan AMM CHEN ot aa( pL 
 

 
THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 

 
THROUGH SCIENCE 
 TO GOD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 From Nesuua to INHABITED PLANET 
 
 From nebula to inhabited planet,—how glibly we 
 say it. And yet how impossible it is even to 
 comprehend what untold billions of years lie 
 between us and that unthinkably remote past when 
 all that we see about us and all that exists in the 
 central sun and in the other members of our solar 
 system were ‘‘without form and void,’’ diffused 
 possibly in some by-path of the heavens as a thin 
 vaporous fire mist, or nebula. For it is thought 
 that in the infinite sweep of Time, suns and solar 
 systems are subject to the common law of growth. 
 They take their beginnings in the primeval chaos of 
 disintegrated matter, evolve to maturity, and then 
 decay, possibly again being resolved into the raw 
 material of infant worlds, only to pass in never- 
 ending succession through cycles of birth and growth 
 and decline. How it staggers thought and bewilders 
 the imagination for us ephemeral creatures of but 
 a fraction of a cosmic moment to attempt to visualize 
 
 13 
 
14 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 this drama of eternity,—perpetual change, ceaseless 
 ebb and flow, never a flawless product, youth, 
 maturity and old age, always rising spiral-like to 
 larger cycles and higher levels, leading sometime, 
 somewhere to organic life, as possibly but a passing 
 phase of the process, and the insoluble mystery of 
 the whither of it all! What lies back of the atoms, 
 molecules and electrons that constitute the nebula? 
 Are we able anywhere to detect a Divine Purpose? 
 Does our little system of life and cosmic matter 
 seem to be the product of a Master Mind? Or, are 
 we and all else in the universe mere puppets of 
 chance? Are we simply a part of a colossal 
 mechanism of perpetual motion, requiring neither 
 creator nor guide? And are there other worlds 
 than ours,—myriads of them possibly? Does the 
 universe mayhap swarm with life, even as a drop of 
 water from a stagnant pool teems with microscopic 
 organisms? Can we imagine the limits of creation, 
 bounds beyond which there is no star or nebula or 
 life or motion? These are some of the soul- 
 perplexing questions to which we citizens of the 
 universe would fain have answers, It may be that 
 along some path of inquiry lies an inkling of the 
 truth. Let us see. 
 
 Should we sweep the heavens with the telescope 
 and possibly call to our aid celestial photography, 
 our search would be rewarded with the discovery 
 of hundreds of thousands of luminous cloud-like 
 wisps of matter, dotting the night-time skies in 
 abundant profusion. These are the nebule. They 
 cover vast areas of the celestial spaces. The nebula 
 
FROM NEBULA TO INHABITED PLANET 15 
 
 in the constellation Lyra would hold twenty-five 
 thousand solar systems equal in size to our own. 
 So immense are some that it would require many 
 years for a ray of light, journeying at the rate of one 
 hundred eighty-six thousand miles a second, to pass 
 from side to side. The quantity of material in the 
 vast whirlpool in Orion is sufficient to give birth to 
 thousands of giant suns. The great nebula in 
 Andromeda, the largest as seen from the earth and 
 also possibly one of the nearest, is still so far away 
 that some astronomers estimate its distance at a 
 half million light years. That is, it would require 
 light, at its ‘‘stage-coach’’ speed, a half million 
 years to travel from that patch of luminous vapor 
 to the earth. 
 
 The spectroscope, a marvelous instrument for 
 the revelation of the secrets of the heavens, tells us 
 that these nebule consist of incandescent gases in 
 highly rarefied form, so exceedingly rare that the 
 gases remaining in a vacuum tube are dense in 
 comparison. But whence the source of the hght? 
 In those vacuous spaces, it is intensely cold, 
 probably little, if any, above absolute zero, the 
 coldest possible temperature. This light, then, can 
 not be due to heat. And yet, the luminosity of these 
 attenuated gases is maintained, apparently un- 
 diminished, from decade to decade and century to 
 century. It is altogether likely that this condition 
 must be attributed to an electrical disturbance, 
 similar to that of the Aurora Borealis. But, be that 
 as it may, these nebule are among the most 
 numerous objects of the heavens. Many of them 
 
16 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 are spiral, gigantic whirlpools of cosmic action in 
 which other suns and worlds innumerable may be in 
 the process of formation. At least that is the view 
 which has been held by many astronomers, from 
 Laplace to the present day. 
 
 Let us examine this Nebular Hypothesis a little 
 more in detail. Its purpose is to account for the 
 origin of a solar system like our own. Somewhere, 
 somehow, sometime our little family group of cen- 
 tral sun and attendant bodies took its beginning. 
 What is the explanation? How did it happen and 
 how has the matter which composes them evolved to 
 its present form? The theory of Laplace, a brilliant 
 French mathematician and astronomer of something 
 more than a century ago, is briefly this: A nebula 
 of glowing gas rotating on an axis and subject to 
 the law of gravitation, as all matter is, would 
 through inconceivably long periods of time con- 
 tract with the evolution of heat and in so doing 
 assume a flattened disk-like form. The diminishing 
 size of the nebula would, as a direct result of 
 physical laws, increase the rate of rotation until 
 the centrifugal force equaled the gravitational pull 
 toward the center of the mass. When this stage 
 was reached, a large ring of rotating matter would 
 be left behind, which, under the influence of the 
 same laws of motion and gravitation, would be 
 gathered into a planet revolving about the parent 
 nucleus. This in turn, too, would throw off rings 
 to form satellites. And then again, slowly and 
 without haste, through countless eons, as befits the 
 cosmic processes of eternity, other rings would be 
 
FROM NEBULA TO INHABITED PLANET 17 
 
 separated from the central mass to form additional 
 planets. When stability was finally reached, the 
 product of this stupendous piece of creative 
 evolution would be a solar system with a highly 
 heated central sun and a revolving group of plane- 
 tary attendants. As a by-product, out of the 
 surplus material of this world building, swarms of 
 meteoric matter would be left to revolve in orbits of 
 their own about the central luminary. And comets, 
 those erratic members of the solar family about 
 which is associated so much of mystery but which 
 were shown by Newton to obey the law of gravi- 
 tation, at one or more points of the evolution were 
 hurled forth on those far-flung paths which take 
 them to such remote portions of the vast unknown, 
 only to return at regular intervals to salute the ma- 
 jestic ruler of their journeyings. Slowly our earth, 
 one of the lesser planets, cooled down sufficiently to 
 permit the vapor in its atmosphere to condense and 
 those elemental forces of heat and rain and wind and 
 moving water to begin the infinitely slow process of 
 building the continents and fashioning them for the 
 abode of living things. 
 
 Although there are difficulties in the way of the 
 complete acceptance of this theory, it is understand- 
 able that a solar system could be evolved in 
 accordance with its principles. Electrons, atoms, 
 molecules and then a luminous rotating nebula, a 
 whirlpool of meteoric matter, followed by a central 
 disk sloughing off gigantic rings to form a plan- 
 etary group, and at length a cooling earth evolving 
 throughout long ages into a suitable habitat for life 
 
18 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 and eventually for the home of man,—this seems 
 to have been the possible order of creation. The 
 large numbers of spiral nebule which dot the heav- 
 ens, indicate that this description possesses a high 
 degree of approximation to the truth. 
 
 Other explanations have been advanced, 
 particularly the Planetesimal Theory of Professors 
 Chamberlain and Moulton, of Chicago University, 
 which builds up the planets and their satellites from 
 meteoric dust rotating in an immense spiral whirl- 
 pool. These bodies have not been hurled off from 
 the central nucleus, but instead represent small 
 knots of infalling material drawn together by the 
 force of gravitation. This meteoric matter was orig- 
 inally cold, and the heat of the planets has been 
 developed, like that of the sun, by gravitational 
 compression. The atmosphere and the water in the 
 oceans were squeezed out of the interior of the 
 earth during an immense period of growth and 
 contraction. In some respects this theory fits the 
 facts of observation better than does the older one 
 of Laplace. 
 
 But, although it is still uncertain, and possibly 
 always will be, as to the exact method by which our 
 solar system has evolved, astronomers have no 
 doubt that it took its beginning in some primitive 
 nebula, at an inconceivably remote moment of the 
 infinite past, and that it is leisurely taking its 
 course through the successive stages of youth, 
 maturity and old age. Abundant evidence of such 
 eycles of change is written large in the heavens. 
 Spectroscopic analysis reveals suns in every stage 
 
FROM NEBULA TO INHABITED PLANET 19 
 
 of evolution from those still wrapped in nebulous 
 matter and the giant stars of youth to the feebly 
 flickered red dwarfs of old age and the cold dark 
 bodies which have lived their lives and are speeding 
 onward through space, awaiting the chance of some 
 celestial catastrophe to resolve themselves once 
 more into the primeval chaos of nebulous matter, 
 only to begin anew the birth of other suns and 
 worlds. In the vast sweep of such a cosmic cycle, 
 may there not be at many points organic evolution 
 with the unfolding of life in all its manifold forms, 
 the growth and decay of cities and civilizations, 
 human souls groping after God and immortality, 
 and mayhap still higher and nobler phases of ex- 
 istence than any we have as yet experienced? 
 
 As to other worlds than ours, it would, indeed, 
 be most unreasonable to assume that our little earth 
 is the only spot in the universe suitable for the 
 origin and evolution of life. Of the hundreds of 
 millions of stars, which exist in space, thousands 
 are known to be in the same state of evolution as is 
 our sun. And our solar system is thought by some 
 astronomers to be at maturity and by others just 
 approaching old age, which, for aught we know, may 
 be the harvest time of a star period. The heat 
 of the sun is not increasing. It may be on the wane. 
 Not that such diminution would be appreciable with- 
 in the brief span of recorded history, for life con- 
 ditions will doubtless be maintained here for many 
 millions of years yet, but, so far as cosmic time goes, 
 we are more than likely in the second half of our 
 eycle. This is inferred from the character of the 
 
20 THROUGH SCIENCE TQ GoD 
 
 sun’s light. The ruler of our skies has traveled an 
 inconceivably long way since the youthful period 
 when it was a reddish giant, and it still has an im- 
 mensely long future, before it passes completely 
 through the reddish dwarf stage and becomes a dark 
 lifeless body. Now, is it not highly probable that in- 
 numerable other suns in the same state of develop- 
 ment as ours may have inhabited planets revolving 
 about them,—scenes of life and death, struggle and 
 triumph, sorrow and joy,—cosmic niches, as it were, 
 in the infinite plan of creation? Of course, we can 
 never know. But someway, it seems as though the 
 universe would be out of tune if the earth were the 
 only place where evolution has flowered into life. 
 Similar paths of cosmic development must have led 
 to like conditions of growth and fruitage. Implicit 
 in the Infinite Purpose which embraces all creation 
 must be life, and life in abundance. Just as every 
 region of the earth, the environment of which per- 
 mits, teems with life, so would it seem that every sun 
 at the proper season must become the center of 
 numerous populations, as naturally as harvest time 
 brings the ripened grain, or the spring-time soil 
 sends violets up and paints them blue. Surely, life 
 must be one of the supreme achievements of crea- 
 tion and our little earth but a single member of 
 God’s great republic of worlds. 
 
 And what of the bounds of space? In spite of 
 Einstein, we can not conceive of the beginnings or 
 the ends of space,—of a place where there is no 
 space. Space must be infinite in extent. Hach new 
 telescope, more powerful than the last, pushes back 
 
FROM NEBULA TO INHABITED PLANET 21 
 
 the frontiers of our universe by billions of miles 
 and adds many millions of suns to our stellar 
 population. And we say our universe, because 
 many of the foremost astronomers believe that our 
 immense family of stars is only one of many similar 
 collections, the members of each such group con- 
 stituting a cosmic unit and moving in accordance 
 with the law of gravitation. It is entirely possible 
 that these universes may be as humerous in space as 
 a whole as are the stars in our own cosmic system. 
 Giant suns, larger even than Betelgeuse, itself more 
 than three hundred times as large as our own, may 
 people space in the utmost profusion. What a stu- 
 pendous place creation is! And how even the most 
 momentous events of our little planet are dwarfed 
 into insignificance in comparison with the vastness 
 of it all! Yet may it not be true that the supreme 
 purpose of creation everywhere is the production of 
 life and the evolution of immortal souls? Some- 
 where, sometime we may understand it all, for there 
 can be little doubt that the life which manifests in 
 each individual will continue to evolve through end- 
 less time, just as in all probability do the matter 
 and energy in the solar system of which we are a 
 part. At least such a view is far and away the most 
 probable one possible to take. | 
 
 FASHIONING THE PLANET FOR LIFE 
 
 After our earth had become a full-fledged mem- 
 ber of the solar system, the next stage in the process 
 of evolution was to prepare its surface for the 
 abiding-place of living things. How did it happen? 
 
22 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 Whether the origin of the earth be in accordance 
 with the Nebular Hypothesis or the Planetesimal, or 
 with some other as yet unformulated, the first chap- 
 ter of the geologic story begins with the foundation 
 erust whose heaving surface, refashioned by the ele- 
 mental forces of volcanic heat, and ocean, wind and 
 running water, was to serve as nature’s theater of 
 action. But there was no haste. With an infinity 
 of time at her command, Nature began the incon- 
 ceivably slow changes which were to lead to 
 continents, eventually to be clothed with vegetation 
 and replete with animal life. The rocks* were at 
 first molten, seething and boiling and doubtless for 
 ages passing alternately from lava to solid crust 
 and back again. In this boiling process, the lighter 
 materials rose to the top, while the heavier ones 
 sank to form the denser core. Very gradually the 
 surface cooled and at the same time the mass of the 
 earth shrank in size until its diameter became what 
 it is to-day, about seven thousand nine hundred 
 miles. At length a temperature was reached low 
 enough to permit the vast quantities of water 
 vapor contained in the atmosphere to condense to 
 form the ocean. For a long time, only here and 
 there protruding masses of rock indicated the 
 embryonic beginnings of continents. The ocean was 
 shallow, no great depressions having been formed. 
 Owing to the prevailing high temperature, 
 prodigious quantities of water vapor passed into 
 the clouds, only to condense and fall back as rain, 
 part of it to gather in rivers upon the roeky nuclei 
 of the continents and rushing seaward to bear down 
 
 *According to the Nebular Hypothesis. 
 
FROM NEBULA TO INHABITED PLANET 23 
 
 to the shallow coastal waters sediment derived from 
 the rocks over which they passed. Thus were the 
 first sedimentary rocks laid down. The winds, 
 lashing the sea with the fury of the storm, drove the 
 waves against the shore-lines, grinding the rocks 
 into pebbles, sand and mud, which the sorting 
 action of water deposited in additional layers of 
 rock. And so the continents grew. 
 
 But the crust of the earth was still far from 
 stable. Its heaving surface rose and fell like the 
 billows of a troubled sea, here an elevation, there a 
 subsidence. As deeper and deeper warps occurred, 
 the waters withdrew into them, leaving constantly 
 larger areas of rock exposed to the action of wind 
 and running water. And these two processes have 
 continued to the present day, although more 
 extensively in past geologic time than in recent. 
 More than once dry land has disappeared below the 
 surface of the sea, and ocean beds have been raised 
 to become dry land. Continents and islands now 
 separated by oceans have repeatedly been joined by 
 bridges of land. It is not improbable that the fabled 
 continent of Atlantis existed at one time somewhere 
 in the north Atlantic Ocean. Abandoned beaches, 
 now stranded far inland, tell of the locations of early 
 geologic seas. Ancient river terraces give evidence 
 of shifting physical features of the land and changes 
 of elevation. But these changes have been ex- 
 ceedingly slow, vast periods of time being required 
 for their execution. 
 
 And with it all mountains grew, sometimes 
 gigantic folds thrust heavenward by the attempts 
 
24 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 of the cold crust to fit itself to a constantly cooling 
 and shrinking interior, sometimes a series of deep 
 furrows eroded in the rocks through the agency of 
 running water, and this interplay of titanic forces 
 was frequently accompanied by the music of 
 volcanic action, lava flows and earthquake catas- 
 trophes. ‘The tremendous pressures and high 
 temperatures developed in these folding and 
 crumpling processes of mountain growth often 
 resulted in changes in the structure of the rocks 
 themselves. 
 
 But no sooner do mountains begin to grow than 
 the eternal forces of destruction set out to annihilate 
 them. Their bare and unprotected surfaces are 
 splintered by the lightning, carved into fantastic 
 shapes by wind and driven sand, deeply eroded by 
 the torrential rush of running water, and burst 
 asunder by the irresistible force of frost and ice, The 
 debris of these ceaseless processes of decay, borne 
 seaward by the rivers, finds a lodging place in 
 valley, plain and delta. And thus deep soils come 
 to cover the lowlands. 
 
 With this perpetual shifting of mountain, sea 
 and continent, too, came climatic changes of vast 
 proportions, one and the same region having been 
 repeatedly the scene of tropic heat and Arctie cold. 
 Abundant evidence of these conditions is written 
 large in the record of the rocks. 
 
 And so this drama of geologic forces held the 
 stage for countless eons before those peculiar 
 conditions necessary for the production of life 
 emerged upon the earth. But at length they came, 
 
FROM NEBULA TO INHABITED PLANET 25 
 
 and when they did, the simplest forms of living 
 organisms appeared as naturally as the flower un- 
 folds from the bud. We may never be able to 
 duplicate the exact conditions required for this 
 strategic turning-point in the evolution of our 
 planet, but we may be perfectly certain that they 
 had their origin in the Divine Immanence of all 
 creation. Only recently Doctor John W. Gruner, of 
 the department of geology of the University of 
 Minnesota, announced that he had found evidences 
 of blue-green algew, very primitive microscopic 
 plants, in rocks belonging to the Archwan Age, the 
 oldest of the geologic ages. Doctor Charles D. 
 Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 
 at Washington, had already discovered organic 
 remains in rocks of almost equal age. Certain it 
 is that when the earth had cooled sufficiently to 
 support life, life appeared and organic evolution 
 began. The tale of the rock record, as revealed in 
 its fossil populations, will be told in another 
 chapter. 
 
 From nebula to inhabited planet has become an 
 accomplished fact, not once only, but possibly 
 millions of times at innumerable points of space. 
 Ephemeral creatures of but a small portion of a 
 cosmic instant, we can no more, in our present state 
 of evolution, fathom the mystery of it all than can 
 an insect in a tropic forest appreciate the vastness 
 of his surroundings. Still, by the contemplation of 
 the awe-inspiring grandeur of our universe and the 
 sublime order of creation, we emancipate our earth- 
 bound souls and grow in mental and moral stature, 
 
26 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 HOW OLD IS THE EARTH? 
 
 The age of the earth has been a bone of con- 
 tention, both in theology and science, for centuries. 
 But inasmuch as theology has no sources’ of in- 
 formation other than legendary statements having 
 their origin in the folklore of primitive peoples, we 
 must turn to science for an answer. 
 
 A century ago, Lyell, the great Scotch geologist, 
 announced that the same slowly acting forces which 
 are reshaping the physical features of mother earth 
 to-day have wrought all the vast changes of the 
 past, from the time our planet was a molten* sphere 
 to the present moment. Estimates by many 
 scientists, based upon the known rates of change in 
 various parts of the world, have placed the age of 
 the earth at not less than one hundred millions of 
 years. And this conclusion does not take into 
 account the immeasurably long periods of time 
 comprised in the nebular period which preceded the 
 coming into play of present geologic forces. In com- 
 parison with these, one hundred million years would 
 comprise scarcely a tick of the cosmic time clock. 
 
 Still biologists were not satisfied. One hundred 
 millions of years were all too short for the 
 stupendous processes of organic evolution which 
 the fossil record of the rocks disclosed. Nothing 
 less than several hundred millions would suffice 
 for the unimaginably slow changes which have oc- 
 curred from the time the most primitive forms of 
 life appeared to the highly organized fauna and 
 
 *It should be noted that according to Planetesimal Hypothesis 
 the early condition of the earth was not molten. 
 
FROM NEBULA TO INHABITED PLANET lef 
 
 flora of to-day. And so, many eminent biologists 
 have extended the life-span of the earth to at least 
 a billion years. 
 
 The astronomers and the physicists, too, have 
 made estimates, based upon entirely different 
 sources of information. They ask the question: 
 How long has the radiation of light and heat from 
 our sun been sufficient to maintain life upon this 
 globe? For we must understand that the sun is our 
 sole source of energy. It is rays of the sun which 
 evaporate the water from the ocean to supply the 
 rainfall for our lakes and rivers and waterfalls. It 
 is the energy of the sunlight which builds starch 
 and cellulose in the chemical laboratory of a green 
 leaf. And it was this same energy of the sun which 
 in a remote geologic time grew the forests for the 
 production of coal. When the solar fires grow cold, 
 _ the life cycle of our planet will have run its course. 
 It is estimated that the earth intercepts solar energy 
 at the stupendous rate of two hundred and thirty 
 trillion horse-power. And yet that is but one two- 
 billionth of the total amount radiated into space by 
 our central luminary, the bulk of which, according 
 to our ideas, is wasted. What maintains these 
 fires, and how long will they continue? To com- 
 pensate for this prodigious loss, there must be 
 some source of supply, else the sun would have 
 grown cold ages ago. What is it? 
 
 The early theories, that the heat of the sun is 
 maintained by ordinary combustion or that the sun 
 is simply cooling off and thus radiating into space 
 the heat obtained in its evolution from primeval 
 chaos, have been shown to be utterly untenable. 
 
28 PHROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 And so also has the idea that the solar energy is 
 generated by the impact of meteors falling from 
 great distances into the sun passed into the discard. 
 The total mass of meteors is simply insufficient for 
 any such enormous demands. For many years the 
 most plausible explanation seemed to be the 
 generation of heat through the contraction of the 
 mass of the sun itself. Following the methods 
 first employed by Helmholtz and using the most 
 recent data regarding the sun’s rate of radiation, 
 mass and size, it has been shown that a contraction 
 in the sun’s radius of one hundred and twenty feet 
 a year would supply a quantity of heat as great as 
 the sun now radiates annually. And such a diminu- 
 tion of the sun’s diameter could not be detected, even 
 with the most powerful telescopes, for ten thousand 
 years. Estimates of the crustal age of the earth, 
 based upon the sun’s rate of radiation, have varied 
 all the way from Lord Kelvin’s figures of one 
 hundred million years down to twenty-five millions 
 in more recent times. 
 
 But science seldom stands still. Researches in 
 the wonderful field of radioactivity have increased 
 the estimated age of the earth enormously. The 
 biologist, who was trying to scrape along on the 
 niggardly hundred million years doled out to him 
 by his brother scientists, may now have almost un- 
 limited periods of time for his processes of 
 evolution. Without here going into the details of 
 the methods employed, let it be said that Professor 
 A. C. Lane, of Tufts College, chairman of the com- 
 mittee appointed by the National Research Council 
 
FEOM NEBULA TO INHABITED PLANET 29 
 
 to estimate the age of the earth by observations of 
 the rate of atomic disintegration, as revealed by the 
 relative amounts of radioactive elements in the 
 earth’s crust and their decomposition products, 
 announces an age of a billion and a quarter years. 
 Doctor H. V. Ellsworth, of the Canadian Geological 
 Survey, from independent researches in the same 
 field, confirms these figures. 
 
 It is highly probable, too, that the heat of the 
 sun is maintained to a large degree by the de- 
 composition of radioactive elements. Spectroscopic 
 analysis of the sun’s atmosphere by Sir Norman 
 Lockyer revealed the presence of helium there in 
 large quantities long before it was found on the 
 earth, and helium is one of the chief disintegration 
 products of radium. In this disintegration, enor- 
 mous quantities of heat are liberated, and it may 
 well be that in these reservoirs of sub-atomic 
 energy science has at last solved the riddle of the 
 celestial fires. | 
 
 Certain it is that the earth is old, vastly older 
 than the earlier estimates of science would lead us 
 to believe. Whatever may be our ideas regarding 
 the spiritual and theistic aspects of the universe, 
 we must concede the immense antiquity of man’s 
 earthly abode. 
 
 IS THERE PURPOSE IN CREATION ? 
 
 Has this stupendous process of cosmic action, 
 this eternal pageant of creation been the result of 
 mere chance and accident? Do we behold only a 
 self-running mechanism of colossal proportions? 
 
30 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 Do we see nothing but matter, force and energy? 
 Can we imagine that our solar system, whatever the 
 process or method, has come about without a 
 directing agency? Has there been no thought or 
 purpose or intelligence? These are questions which 
 have puzzled many minds in many times. 
 
 But what do we see? A cosmic order of perfect 
 law and harmony. ‘‘The heavens are crystallized 
 mathematics.’’ The members of our solar system 
 move in their orbits with unerring precision. The 
 universal law of gravitation demonstrates the sway 
 of a force of such dizzy vastness as to bewilder 
 thought in the attempt to grasp it. The atoms, too, 
 are known to be marvelous systems of planetary 
 units, moving in accordance with laws as unvarying 
 as those which prevail in cosmic space. Chemical 
 changes are always in exact numerical proportions. 
 The molecules decompose and the atoms recombine 
 in obedience to definite and undeviating laws. Some 
 power has founded these systems of law and order 
 and maintains them with unwearying and un- 
 alterable exactness. What is it,—intelligent pur- 
 pose or chance? Self-directing reason or blind 
 necessity? There are no other alternatives. Shall 
 we assume that a power which is neither rational 
 nor intelligent has by mere accident produced a 
 world order of marvelous complexity and perfect 
 harmony, one which is wholly intelligible to the 
 human understanding, a product of its own creation, 
 but is utterly unintelligible to itself? Can we 
 subscribe to the doctrine that an intelligible universe 
 can proceed from a non-intelligent source? 
 
FROM NEBULA TO INHABITED PLANET rast 
 
 But more significant than all this, the whole 
 trend of evolution from nebula to mature planet 
 seems to look forward to the coming of life. Here, 
 unquestionably, we seem to see purpose. Not once 
 in a million times would it be possible for a system 
 of nature exactly adapted to the production and 
 maintenance of life to evolve by mere chance. 
 Whence this unique and remarkable fitness? An 
 atmosphere of precisely the correct proportions of 
 essential elements, an ocean of wonderfully 
 moderating influence upon temperature and climate 
 and a natural habitat for many forms of animal life, 
 elements and compounds whose physical and 
 chemical properties serve the necessities of man- 
 kind and promote the growth of industries and 
 civilizations, vast storehouses of natural wealth, 
 seemingly inexhaustible supplies of energy, the 
 rather narrow range of temperature within which 
 living organisms can exist, productive soils, 
 mechanical laws amenable to human intelligence,— 
 all these and much more point to the advent of life 
 as the supreme achievement in the evolution of our 
 planet. And such a forward-looking bent running 
 back through countless eons implies purpose. We 
 can not escape it. Back of our world, and the 
 universe too, must stand the thought and purpose of 
 an intelligent creator, a Being whose life is the im- 
 manent source of all created things. Any other 
 view is utterly unthinkable. It leads only to mental 
 chaos. 
 
 The fact that the world-ground, or fundamental 
 reality back of creation acts as though it had 
 
32 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 purposes must prove that it has them and that a 
 Supreme Intelligence informs and directs the 
 manifestation of all natural occurrences. That is 
 the law of science. Why do we assume an ether? 
 Simply because it is unthinkable that light and heat 
 energy can travel ninety-three millions of miles 
 from the sun to the earth without something in 
 which to travel. Until the coming of Hinstein 
 certain natural phenomena seemed utterly unintel- 
 ligible without the supposition of this intangible 
 medium. But whether it be the old reliable ether or 
 some other hypothetical connecting bond, the mind 
 will never rest content with a mere vacuum. What- 
 ever is necessary to the mind’s understanding of 
 the facts, the imperial scientist will invoke. Why 
 do we believe that the fossil record of the rocks un- 
 folds the past history of organic life upon this 
 planet? Because there is no other rational ex- 
 planation. Why do we say that certain rocks were 
 once molten and that others were formed by the 
 deposit of sediments? Because their structures 
 clearly disclose such an origin. The scientist 
 believes implicitly in the marvelous subatomic 
 worlds of electrons, and yet they are utterly beyond 
 his most penetrating gaze. True, the rational 
 necessity for their existence rests upon a wealth of 
 experimental evidence. Nevertheless, they have 
 sprung into being in response to our attempts to in- 
 terpret the facts of nature. Very much of natural 
 phenomena is just as unintelligible without 
 assuming Divine Purpose as is the world of atoms 
 without electrons. God is as much a rational 
 
FROM NEBULA TO INHABITED PLANET on 
 
 necessity to the understanding of the universe, and 
 of our planet in particular, as are the hypotheses of 
 the scientist to the interpretation of his facts. Still, 
 it is not to be inferred that the idea of God is simply 
 an hypothesis. To many of the most profound 
 thinkers His existence is as axiomatic as that two 
 and two are four. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 From Myrxu anp LEGEND To THE REIGN oF Law 
 
 Ler us transport ourselves backward for a little 
 time to the early centuries of the Christian Mra and 
 view the ancient world as it appeared to the simple 
 folk of that comparatively recent period in the 
 history of mankind. True, the seasons came and 
 went then as now; the same ocean bathed the 
 continents; the same heavens stretched their empy- 
 rean canopy from horizon to horizon; the same 
 heavenly host peopled the infinite depths of space; 
 the earth was no larger then than now; it spun on its 
 axis and whirled about the sun with the same un- 
 erring precision of time and motion; the law of 
 gravitation extended its sovereign sway as far as 
 now; our solar system marched with the stars just 
 as it does to-day; the more distant suns of the beau- 
 tiful Milky Way were even then ‘‘at least a hundred 
 thousand trillion miles away’’ from our little plan- 
 etary group; the sunbeam, the measuring rod of the 
 new heavens, traveling at the rate of one hundred 
 eighty-six thousand miles a second, required, too, in 
 that early day thousands of years to journey from 
 farthest sun to farthest sun across our universe of 
 stars; the atoms, molecules and electrons, imprison- 
 ing a million hoary secrets, fairy-like spun and 
 
 a4 
 
FROM MYTH AND LEGEND 35 
 
 danced, even as they do in the scientist’s laboratory 
 to-day; the story of the rocks, ages old, lay as an 
 open book before any who perchance might under- 
 stand its language; Nature held the same vast store- 
 houses of latent treasure; the giant steam and the 
 untamed lightning were eager then to become the 
 burden-bearers of the race; this ancient world pos- 
 sessed little to distinguish it in physical character- 
 istics from the world to-day. But little did those 
 youthful peoples know what vast unexplored spaces 
 of land and sea and sky lay beyond their tiny 
 horizon. Myth and legend were their source of 
 knowledge. To their simple faith the little world of 
 that day presented few problems. The mysteries 
 of heaven and earth were far less obscure than they 
 are to us, and chiefly, because they ‘‘knew’’ so much 
 that is not so. But let us visit that ancient world 
 and follow the crude thinking of those pioneers of 
 ‘“‘vesterday,’’ as it evolved through ever-increasing 
 knowledge to constantly higher and more truthful 
 conceptions both of God and man and of the uni- 
 verse: of which we are a part. 
 
 Could we wake up some morning in this little 
 world of long ago, we should find it constructed 
 in accordance with the legendary accounts of crea- 
 tion originating in the gray mists of Chaldean, 
 Hgyptian, Persian and other ancient civilizations. 
 This crude cosmogony represented a curious blend- 
 ing of common-sense notions and purely imaginative 
 ideas. So far as the early Christians were con- 
 cerned, it drew its warrant from a host of Biblical 
 texts, founded in turn upon these primitive legends. 
 
36 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 Crude products of ignorance and superstition, these 
 theories of the universe are such as might be ex- 
 pected from infant peoples making the first tiny 
 explorations of the infinite depths of space. 
 
 The Chaldean account pictures a flat earth rest- 
 ing upon the ‘‘great waters’’ surrounding it and in 
 whose depths are placed the foundations which sup- 
 port the solid dome of the ‘‘firmament.’’?’ Within 
 the earth is the realm of the dead, and above the 
 firmament is first another ocean and then the in- 
 terior of heaven. Through doors at the east and 
 west points of the dome of the heavens the sun is 
 admitted in the morning and makes his exit at night. 
 
 The Egyptian notion was quite similar. To 
 those simple folk, the earth was like a long flat 
 table, carrying at its corners four pillars to support 
 a huge firmament of metal, beyond which were the 
 ‘‘waters above the heavens.’’ In this dome, the 
 stars were hung, great lights to illumine the earth, 
 and through its windows water was occasionally let 
 down as rain upon the land. 
 
 With our present knowledge of the heavens, as 
 revealed through the big telescopes, we smile at 
 these primitive beliefs, and yet, in the face of the 
 undoubted facts of scientific investigation to the 
 contrary, many of us still cling to ideas of creation 
 drawn from the same sources and equally prim- 
 itive. With all our boasted learning, our thinking 
 is often quite as crude as that of these ancient 
 peoples. 
 
 Gradually during the first centuries of the 
 church, there evolved an orthodox theory of the 
 
FROM MYTH AND LEGEND 37 
 
 universe. It was the product of many minds and 
 grew out of various passages of Scripture. It never 
 occurred to these people that the Bible is only a 
 spiritual guide and not a text-book of science. Its 
 poetic and figurative language was interpreted as 
 literal truth. With all the facts of nature and the 
 universe clearly revealed in Holy Writ, the pursuit 
 of science was worse than useless. This prying into 
 the secrets of God was blasphemous and iniquitous. 
 It was much easier and far safer to construct a 
 theory of the universe based on Scripture and 
 imagination. 
 
 Some of the Scriptural reférénees, such as the 
 ‘‘doors of heaven,’’ the ‘‘pillars of heaven,’’ the 
 ‘‘windows of heaven,’’ the ‘‘waters above the firm- 
 ament,’’ the ‘‘corners of the earth,’’ the ‘‘founda- 
 tions of the earth upon the waters,’’ and the ‘‘foun- 
 tains of the great deep,’’ clearly betray their 
 legendary origin, From the beautiful imagery of 
 Isaiah: ‘‘It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the 
 earth, . . . that stretcheth out the heavens as a 
 curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell 
 in,’’ came the idea of the early Church Fathers that 
 the universe is like a house. The firmament is the 
 ceiling and the earth the floor. A huge cistern con- 
 tains the ‘‘waters above the firmament,’’ from which 
 the Almighty and his angels let the water down upon 
 the earth through the ‘‘windows of heaven.’’? In the 
 morning they hang out the sun to rule the day, and 
 at eventide they pull him behind a mountain or push 
 him into a pit, while at the same time they hang out 
 the stars and moon to rule the night. Beneath the 
 
38 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 floor of the earth and beyond the ‘‘great waters’’ 
 surrounding the earth was hell. To the question, 
 ‘‘Why is the sun so red in the evening?’’ it was 
 answered, ‘‘Because he looketh down upon hell.”’ 
 To the great mass of the faithful, rooted and 
 erounded in ignorance as they were, these ideas 
 seemed like a direct revelation from on High. And 
 in that golden age of fancy, hundreds of myths hav- 
 ing this imaginative background as their source 
 circulated freely among the people. The catching 
 up of mortals into heaven and the descent and 
 ascent of angels were common occurrences. ‘‘Signs 
 and wonders’’ hung from the heavens, the hurling of 
 thunderbolts, the blowing of mighty winds, the send- 
 ing of fiery comets, and miraculous interventions of 
 every sort grew into fixed articles of faith in that 
 fertile soil of superstition. And for this conception 
 of things theologians fought long and desperately. 
 But the germ of truth was abroad in the world, 
 and ultimately this elaborate work of the imagina- 
 tion was bound to go. Seventeen centuries before 
 the time of Copernicus, Aristarchus, the most 
 notable astronomer of antiquity, had proposed a 
 theory of our solar system differing but little from 
 that of to-day. This imaginative Greek, and Py- 
 thagoras before him, had taught that the earth is 
 round long before the time of Christ. And the idea 
 still lived. But the early Church Fathers opposed 
 it strenuously. Even Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin 
 and Zwingli, the foremost leaders of the Reforma- 
 tion, regarded the belief as heretical. They were 
 fettered to the legendary idea of a solid firmament 
 
FROM MYTH AND LEGEND 39 
 
 separating the heavens from the earth. To them 
 it seemed for long an essential item of Christian 
 faith, just as to-day a belief in the letter-proof ac- 
 curacy of the Story of Creation is held by some to 
 be all important to the salvation of men. And yet 
 here and there some enlightened Christian thinker 
 gave his assent to the idea of the earth’s sphericity. 
 The Scriptural utterances seeming to prove the flat- 
 ness of the earth were disregarded. St. Augustine 
 did not oppose the new view. Long before the 
 Reformation, such authorities as Bede, Albert the 
 Great, St. Thomas Aquinas and Dante had accepted 
 it. But even after the idea had evolved into some- 
 thing approaching the nature of a tolerated belief, 
 the Almighty and a host of angels were regarded as 
 the direct operators of earthly affairs, both physical 
 and spiritual, Huge monsters blew the ‘‘four 
 winds’’ of heaven constantly toward Jerusalem, 
 and God held the earth suspended by a rope. 
 Angels laboriously turned the earth on its axis by 
 means of cranks placed at the poles. Guardian 
 angels constantly supervised in a very intimate 
 way the personal actions of men. 
 
 Although the belief that the earth is round grad- 
 ually grew in strength, another problem of stagger- 
 ing proportions presented itself. If the earth is a 
 sphere, how is it possible for men to live on its 
 under side? One eminent churchman asked: ‘‘Is 
 there any one so senseless as to believe that 
 there are men whose footsteps are higher than their 
 heads? . . . that the crops and trees grow down- 
 ward? . . . that the rains and snow and hail fall 
 
40 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 upward toward the earth?. .. I am at a loss 
 what to say of those who, when they have once 
 erred, steadily persevere in their folly and defend 
 one vain thing by another.’’ 
 
 And this was a very real problem. The church 
 took it up, and the whole matter quickly passed from 
 scientific speculation to the realm of theological 
 dogma. <A host of Scriptural passages were mar- 
 shaled in opposition. Salvation was held to be 
 impossible to wilful believers in such a pernicious 
 doctrine. St. Augustine thundered against it. The 
 words of the Nineteenth Psalm: ‘‘Their line is gone 
 out through all the earth, and their words to the end 
 of the world,’’ were regarded as absolutely destruce- 
 tive of this belief. It was urged that Christ could 
 not have died for men on the opposite side of the 
 earth and that at His second coming it would be im. 
 possible for them to see Him descending through 
 the air. All this and much more contributed to the 
 mighty tempest created by those misguided leaders 
 who chose to believe in the literal truth of every 
 Biblical text. And yet their mistaken beliefs were 
 no more absurd, nor nearly as much so, as are those 
 of many in this enlightened age who still persist 
 in regarding the poetry and legend of the Old Testa- 
 ment as revealed truth in its most literal sense. 
 
 But years passed by, and centuries came and 
 went. ‘Then occurred two events which forever 
 Silenced all opposition. Columbus discovered Amer- 
 ica by sailing westward on the ‘‘great waters,’’ and 
 Magellan circumnavigated the globe. Men living 
 at the antipodes had actually been seen. In the fol- 
 
FROM MYTH AND LEGEND 41 
 
 lowing years returning explorers and missionaries 
 brought back confirmation in abundance. 
 
 The storm had passed. So far as the earth was 
 concerned, the primitive notions of its geography 
 had gone. Our world had increased enormously 
 in size, and men’s souls had expanded in equal 
 measure. The conception of God had become a 
 nobler one, and men’s minds had taken the first step 
 in that process of intellectual expansion which was 
 one day to encompass a universe of infinite propor- 
 tions. In one respect, too, the literal interpretations 
 of Biblical texts had received a severe shock. The 
 tempest had raged for twelve centuries, but by the 
 middle of the sixteenth the skies had cleared and 
 the world was ready to face the next great struggle 
 between dogmatic belief in the imaginative creations 
 of a legendary past and the revelations of ad- 
 vancing knowledge. 
 
 Before we pass on to this conflict, however, we 
 must note a theological reconstruction of the uni- 
 verse which had been in progress for many cen- 
 turies. It represented a unique blending of the 
 ancient Ptolemaic theory of the solar system and 
 the medieval interpretation of Scripture, together 
 with the survival of certain Chaldean legends, In 
 this universe building, too, the imaginative element 
 did not cease to have full play. Instead of the flat 
 plain and the solidly vaulted dome, the earth became 
 an immense sphere located at the center of all the 
 other heavenly bodies. Then, these gifted archi- 
 tects surrounded the earth with ten transparent 
 spheres, all but the last rotated by angels and the 
 
492 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 first eight carrying the planets and fixed stars. The 
 tenth sphere, known as the empyrean, was immov- 
 able and marked the boundary between creation and 
 the great outer void of infinite space. There sat 
 God, enthroned in a wondrous light, which no one 
 eould enter, perpetually listening to the ‘‘music of 
 the spheres,’’ as they forever turned in rhythmic 
 motion about the earth, the center of all creation. 
 A vast heavenly host, consisting of hierarchies of 
 angels of many degrees and orders constantly 
 waited upon the Almighty and acted as interme- 
 diaries between Him and the earth. Within the 
 earth was hell, the abode of Lucifer and the rebel- 
 ious angels who with him had been driven from 
 Heaven. These wicked angels were thought to be 
 responsible for a deal of woe among the good 
 angels and in the affairs of men. They caused 
 storms and drought and ensnared men into ways 
 of sin. Dante has immortalized this majestic con- 
 ception for all time. Buttressed by many Scrip- 
 tural texts and much theological reasoning, it pre- 
 vailed for centuries, To cast doubt upon it was 
 blasphemy. 
 
 THE EARTH DETHRONED 
 
 One evening, about the year 1610, at Padua, Italy, 
 Galileo, even then world-renowned scientist and 
 foremost apostle of truth, swept the heavens with 
 his newly-invented ‘‘Optic Tube,’’ and, behold, the 
 celestial spheres vanished as by the waving of a 
 magic wand. The time-honored system of Ptolemy 
 was in potential ruins, With this first sweep of his 
 
FROM MYTH AND LEGEND 43 
 
 telescope, Galileo expanded the tiny world of the 
 ancients to a universe of vast extent. Worlds with- 
 out end sprang into view. Even with this simple 
 instrument, he was amazed to discover that he could 
 count ten times as many stars as were visible to the 
 unaided eye. At a glance, he perceived that they 
 are not all equidistant from the earth. Repeated 
 observations from night to night disclosed phases 
 of Venus, exactly similar to those of our moon. 
 Thus was the belief of Copernicus that the planets 
 are dark bodies shining by reflected light verified. 
 The surface of the moon, shown to be scarred by 
 rugged mountain ranges and pitted with volcanic 
 craters, dissipated the Aristotelian idea that our 
 satellite and the planets are perfectly smooth spher- 
 ical bodies. Then, one evening Galileo turned his 
 telescope upon the planet Jupiter, and a miniature 
 solar system sprang into view. He watched these 
 tiny ‘‘stars’’ from night to night, and quickly estab- 
 lished their revolution about the parent planet. 
 Indeed, here seemed a foreshadowing of the truth 
 of the Copernican theory that the planets, of which 
 the earth is one, revolve in immense orbits about 
 the central sun. Pointing his magic instrument at 
 the sun, he quickly discovered dark spots, seeming 
 blemishes, upon the bright surface of the ruler of the 
 daytime skies. Thus, sunspots, those gigantic whirl- 
 pools of solar activity about which we still have 
 much to learn, became a fact of astronomical dis- 
 covery. Their movement under continued observa- 
 tion proved the rotation of the sun itself. Under 
 the uncanny vision of this simple prophet of the 
 
44 THROUGH SCIENOE TO GOD 
 
 Italian hills, the beautiful Milky Way was resolved 
 into myriads of faint stars at such immeasurable 
 distances as to be utterly invisible to the naked eye. 
 Great discoveries were these, more significant than 
 the world had ever witnessed before. Under their 
 influence men grew in mental stature. They repre- 
 sented the first great step in the emancipation of 
 mankind from intellectual bondage to the powers of 
 ignorance and superstition. 
 
 But what a wreck these discoveries made of the 
 sacred system of the universe! Continued observa- 
 tions from week to week and month to month proved 
 that the planets do revolve about the sun, and not 
 the sun, stars and other planets about the earth. 
 Truly, the earth had been dethroned. It shrank to a 
 relatively insubordinate place in the solar system 
 and to insignificance in the vastness of the stellar 
 world. The Copernican view of the heavens, which 
 the great Polish astronomer had not dared to pub- 
 lish for thirty years under fear of the Inquisition, 
 was vindicated for all with eyes to see and faith to 
 believe in these epoch-making revelations of science. 
 
 As was to be expected, a theological storm of vast 
 magnitude swept the earth. Intrenched ignorance 
 was not easily to be routed from its stronghold. 
 Reverence for the sacred past was stronger than the 
 desire to know the truth. All the forces of the 
 church, both Catholic and Protestant, were arrayed 
 against Galileo. Martin Luther nearly a century be- 
 fore had opposed the sacrilegious belief. Among 
 other intemperate utterances, he said: ‘‘People 
 gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to 
 
FROM MYTH AND LEGEND 45 
 
 show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the 
 firmament, the sun and the moon, Whoever wishes 
 to appear clever must devise some new system, 
 which of all systems is of course the very best. This 
 fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astron- 
 omy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua 
 commanded the sun to stand still, and not the 
 earth.’?’ Melanchthon, associate of Luther in the 
 Reformation, declared: ‘‘The eyes are witnesses 
 that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four 
 hours. But certain men, either from the love of 
 novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have con- 
 cluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that 
 neither the eighth sphere nor the sun revolves... . 
 Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert 
 such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. 
 It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth 
 as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it.’’ Calvin, 
 with the apparent finality of divine warrant, asked: 
 ‘Who will venture to place the authority of Coper- 
 nicus above that of the Holy Spirit?’’ 
 
 These outgivings of great men, blinded by 
 religious zeal, sound strangely similar to the 
 utterances of misguided modern prophets. The 
 ‘heresy’? of evolution to-day stands on precisely 
 the same footing as the three-centuries old ‘‘irre- 
 ligious’’ belief in the new heavens. The one ig as 
 certain of victory as was the other, for no human 
 agency can long withstand the irresistible forward 
 sweep of God’s eternal truth. ‘‘Sound learning’’ 
 and ‘‘safe science’’ can ultimately find no stamping- 
 ground in clarified modern thinking. 
 
46 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 The discoveries of the great Florentine philoso- 
 pher were held to contradict such Biblical passages 
 as the sun ‘‘runneth about from one end of the 
 heavens to the other’’; ‘‘the foundations of the earth 
 are fixed so firm that they can not be moved’’; and 
 the reference to the moon as ‘‘a great light.’? One 
 said, ‘‘His discovery vitiates the whole Christian 
 plan of salvation’’; another, ‘‘It casts suspicion on 
 the doctrine of the incarnation’’; while others were 
 alarmed because ‘‘It upsets the whole basis of the- 
 ology. If the earth is a planet, and only one among 
 several planets, it can not be that any such great 
 things have been done specially for it as the Chris- 
 tian doctrine teaches. If there are other planets, 
 since God makes nothing in vain, they must be in- 
 habited; but how can their inhabitants be descended 
 from Adam? How ean they trace back their origin 
 to Noah’s ark? How can they have been redeemed 
 by the Savior?’’ Absurd as these questions seem 
 to us, they were very real then, just as the problems 
 of evolution are to many honest souls to-day. But 
 there is no shadow of doubt that, in the quite near 
 future, both will be regarded in the same light. 
 
 In vain did the spokesman of the Jesuits thunder 
 that ‘‘The opinion of the earth’s motion is of all 
 heresies the most abominable, the most pernicious, 
 the most scandalous; the immovability of the earth 
 is thrice sacred; argument against the immortality 
 of the soul, the existence of God, and the incarna- 
 tion, should be tolerated sooner than an argument 
 to prove that the earth moves.’’ How firmly myth 
 and legend fettered the thinking of the time, the fol- 
 
FROM MYTH AND LEGEND AT 
 
 lowing statements from one of Galileo’s Catholic 
 critics well illustrates: ‘‘ Animals, which move, have 
 limbs and muscles; the earth has no limbs or mus- 
 cles, therefore it does not move. It is angels who 
 make Saturn, Jupiter, the sun, etc., turn round. If 
 the earth revolves, it must also have an angel in the 
 center to set it in motion; but only devils live there; 
 it would therefore be a devil who would impart 
 motion to the earth.’’ 
 
 How the aged Galileo, twice summoned before 
 the Inquisition, was forced on bended knees under 
 threat of personal torture to recant his belief in the 
 movement of the earth, the world well knows. But 
 no earthly tribunal could stay the triumph of his 
 ideas. The truth was abroad. The tiny world of 
 the ancients and the early church could no longer 
 contain the thoughts of men. Galileo’s telescope had 
 shattered it past the possibility of reconstruction. 
 True, for a century after his death in 1642, Prot- 
 estant theologians and benighted Catholie prelates 
 sought to prove that the Copernican theory could 
 not be reconciled with Scripture. But it was all 
 utterly futile. The church was compelled to retreat; 
 the mythical firmament of the ancients disappeared 
 forever before the telescopic revelations of this sim- 
 ple astronomer of Pisa, Padua and Florence. 
 
 And what had been gained? The triumph of 
 truth, deeper knowledge, keener insight, broader 
 vistas for the soul, a universe of infinite spaces, a 
 starry heaven of immeasurably greater majesty 
 and beauty, tremendous growth in mental stature, a 
 larger and nobler conception of God. 
 
48 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 THE EMERGENCE OF LAW 
 
 But, though the new heavens had been estab- 
 lished, there was as yet no reign of law. Here were 
 majestic movements of the planets and their satel- 
 lites, of the utmost precision and of immense sig- 
 nificance, but no coherent system binding together 
 the members of the solar family had been discov- 
 ered. And then, as though directed by the hand of 
 an unseen guide, Johann Kepler crystallized for all 
 time this new knowledge by his discovery of the laws 
 governing the planetary movements. His three 
 laws, binding the solar system into a unit and elim- 
 inating the element of caprice, placed the new 
 fortress of astronomical science upon a secure foun- 
 dation. To no purpose was he warned by the 
 church ‘‘not to throw Christ’s kingdom into confu- 
 sion with his silly fancies,’’ and ordered to ‘‘bring 
 his theory of the world into harmony with Scrip- 
 ture.’’? But the edifice, reared by Copernicus and 
 Galileo and stabilized by Kepler, could not be thus 
 easily overthrown. At last men’s eyes had been 
 opened to the truth. Freed from the notion of an- 
 gelic direction in the movements of the heavenly 
 bodies, the idea of a reign of law began to take shape 
 in the minds of men. Still, the capstone to the struc- 
 ture was lacking. Something more was needed to 
 give perfect harmony to this little group of cosmic 
 units navigating the immeasurable spaces of the 
 stellar sea. And, as all the world knows, this some- 
 thing was soon supplied by Sir Isaac Newton in 
 that incomparable expression of the Divine Imma- 
 nence, the Universal Law of Gravitation. 
 
FROM MYTH AND LEGEND 49 
 
 How Newton brought under the sway of this law 
 not only the paths of moving bodies at the surface 
 of the earth, but also the motions of the moon, the 
 planets and their satellites, the comets and meteors, 
 and even the rising and falling of the tides, con- 
 stitutes one of the most significant chapters in the 
 story of scientific achievement. Unless we except 
 Hinstein’s discovery of relativity, it is beyond ques- 
 tion the most masterly mathematical feat ever 
 accomplished by the mind of man. When Newton 
 had shown that Kepler’s laws of planetary motion 
 could have been predicted as necessary corollaries 
 of his all-embracing law, the fundamental signifi- 
 eance of this revolutionizing discovery became 
 apparent to all who had ears to hear and the will to 
 understand. 
 
 Still, the church did not welcome this emergence 
 of law. This substitution of understandable law for 
 divine intervention was held to detract from God’s 
 power and to be derogatory of His Majesty. To 
 these small-visioned leaders the discovery of natural 
 laws was looked upon as a serious curtailing of 
 God’s prerogatives. They could not see that back of 
 them must be a Divine Lawgiver and that they lift 
 to a loftier plane the majestic conception of His 
 supremacy. And so Newton, like many other apos- 
 tles of the truth before and since, was regarded as 
 an enemy of God. He who had unlocked the very 
 ante-room to the eternal mysteries of the universe 
 was pilloried as an atheist. 
 
 But the old heavens had gone. ‘‘The spacious 
 firmament on high,’’ ‘‘the crystalline spheres,’’ 
 
50 THROUGH SOIKNOB TO GOD 
 
 ‘‘the windows of heaven,’’ ‘‘the waters above the 
 firmament,’’ ‘‘signs and wonders,’’ the hierarchies 
 of angels attendant upon the earth and the heav- 
 ens,—all this and much more had vanished. Instead 
 men saw the perfect reign of all-pervading law. 
 When toward the middle of the last century, Nep- 
 tune, the outermost member of our solar system, 
 was added to the sisterhood of planets solely 
 through the aid of Newton’s Law of Gravitation, the 
 sovereign sway of this divine expression of God’s 
 method of ordering the movements of the heavenly 
 bodies became acknowledged of all men. 
 
 And thus through the conquests of these great 
 pioneers of scientific discovery, the religious ideals 
 of men and their conception of God had been given 
 truer and nobler meanings. Indeed, these paths of 
 science had led to a deeper and more reverent 
 knowledge of Him whose life is the soul of the uni- 
 verse. In place of a sort of indefinitely magnified 
 and glorified watchmaker, a mighty genius in cos- 
 mic mechanics, who had manufactured a world and 
 set it going, subject to miraculous intervention by 
 himself and a host of celestial assistants, men began 
 to catch a vision of the all-sustaining immanence of 
 a Divine Guide,—always at work, always creating, 
 always directing the destinies of men and events. 
 liverywhere is ceaseless change. Nowhere is there 
 perfect adjustment and harmony, always a constant 
 becoming, a never-ceasing growth. The world is 
 never finished, never a flawless work of art, but 
 always striving toward perfection, taking its course, 
 it may be, toward that ‘‘one far-off divine event 
 toward which the whole creation moves.”’ 
 
FROM MYTH AND LEGEND 51 
 
 And what a mighty universe had been unveiled! 
 What stupendous spaces for the flights of fancy 
 and the thoughts of men! Star clusters so far away 
 that light traveling at the slow speed of one hundred 
 and eighty-six thousand miles a second, requires 
 two hundred and twenty thousand years to reach 
 this planet, And how insignificant this little earth 
 became, but the merest speck of matter spinning in 
 infinite space! Yes, men’s minds broadened im- 
 measurably, not all at once, but in the course of 
 years, as they contemplated the ever-increasing 
 vastness of this new universe of time and space. 
 
 Surely the world had traveled a long way from 
 the age of myth and legend to the reign of 
 celestial law. 
 
CHAPTER IIT 
 THE Mranina or Evo.ution 
 
 ‘‘THe prophet of the newer religious thinking 
 now looks out upon a universe that is marching up- 
 ward, under the guidance of an Unseen Leader 
 whose signals from the heavenly battlements are to 
 euide the pilgrim hosts. Slowly the fire mist cools, 
 puts on a decent crust, and becomes the home of 
 cities and civilizations. Slowly the soil climbs 
 toward grass and shrub and flower. Slowly the 
 little rose, always single and pink, drops its petals 
 to enrich the soil, that to-morrow’s rose may be 
 double and crimson with every hue and perfume. 
 Slowly the thorn apple becomes the Winesap and 
 the Golden Pippin. Slowly the wild rice becomes 
 the Fife wheat; the Indian corn that had six husks 
 around every grain climbs toward the ear that has 
 husks only on the outside of all the grains. Slowly 
 the hut becomes the home; the forked stick a steam 
 plow; the hollow log, the Mauretania; the rude 
 hieroglyphs upon the tree, telling which way the 
 hunter went, become letters and literature. Slowly 
 the ochre on the cheek of the savage becomes the 
 canvas on the wall; and the stone altar becomes the 
 eathedral, while the medicine man, pounding on the 
 drum, becomes the pipe organ; the bleeding human 
 
 52 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 53 
 
 sacrifice becomes the sacrifice of a broken and 
 a contrite heart, an acceptable gift offered to an 
 unseen Friend and Ruler. And this creative act of 
 development is manifestly going on every moment, 
 for all who have eyes to see the invisible signs, or 
 ears to hear the sweetest overtures that ever fell 
 from the battlements of Heaven. Through ever 
 enlarging cycles and higher levels, this creative 
 work that began as the blade and journeyed on 
 toward the stalk will increase until it becomes the 
 full Harvest of God.’’ Thus, does Doctor Newell 
 Dwight Hillis writing in The Forum, for July, 1923, 
 interpret the religious meaning of evolution. 
 
 And so we may gather that evolution is the 
 eternal law of growth. It had its beginning with 
 God, and slowly, majestically, it takes its course 
 across the countless ages, which we call Time, toward 
 that ‘‘one far-off divine event to which the whole 
 creation moves.’’ It was at work in the nebula 
 which gave birth to our solar system. It makes this 
 world of ours kin to the dog star and the fire mist 
 of the Milky Way. It links us to the vast ‘‘heavenly 
 host’? which peoples the infinite depths of space. 
 Even when the ‘‘earth was without form, and void,’’ 
 this law of growth found expression in the marvel- 
 ous systems of atoms, molecules and electrons,— 
 the building blocks, so to speak, of the Great Archi- 
 tect. The elemental forces of heat and wind and 
 rain and moving water which shaped our planet for 
 the abiding-place of living things worked in perfect 
 harmony with this symphony of eternity. And, 
 when in the Infinite Scheme of things the first 
 
54 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 simple forms of life appeared, they began to evolve 
 to the music of this marching song of the ages. 
 When so recently that it seems but yesterday, in 
 comparison with the myriads of centuries which 
 had preceded, man appeared upon this earth, it 
 was in accordance with the fundamental Purpose 
 which governs the destinies of all creation. 
 
 But what does evolution mean to the average 
 individual? What is this strange doctrine which to 
 many seems to have fallen like a bomb into a peace- 
 ful camp, upsetting our orthodox notions of the eter- 
 nal verities of things and spreading dismay among 
 the worshipers of a sacred past? What is this re- 
 ligious furor, of which we hear so much, all about? 
 What is the gist of this battle between the Funda- 
 mentalists and the Modernists,—a battle which 
 sounds like religious thunderings of the Middle 
 Ages? Why do the legislators of certain states seek 
 to prohibit the teaching of evolution in the public 
 schools? Does this new knowledge destroy the faith 
 of our fathers? Does it imperil the progress of the 
 spiritual forces of civilization? Does it blaze new 
 trails where angels fear to tread? Does it destroy 
 belief in God? Has it brought us face to face with 
 the time when, as Comte said, ‘‘we may escort the 
 Creator to the edges of the universe and bow Him 
 out with thanks for His past services’’? Is this 
 theory of evolution merely a pretty guess, a fine- 
 spun fiction of the imagination, or does it rest upon 
 a solid basis of evidence and facts? Is this a colos- 
 sal piece of error and falsehood that men assail or a 
 majestic truth of God’s eternal years? These are 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 5D 
 
 some of the questions which are troubling honest 
 souls, and they deserve answers which shall leave 
 no room for doubt. 
 
 But before we can discover these answers, we 
 must drag forth this monster of evolution from his 
 Jair and turn upon him the full searchlight of truth, 
 No belief, either religious or scientific, has anything 
 to fear from the truth. Sometimes I am reminded 
 of the old gentleman who, when told that the facts 
 did not support his contention that the earth is flat, 
 retorted, ‘‘So much the worse for the facts,”’ 
 
 The other day a friend said to me in conver- 
 sation, ‘‘You don’t believe, do you, that stuff about 
 man’s coming from a monkey or an ape?’’? And 
 this question illustrates precisely the idea which 
 hundreds of people have of evolution. It measures 
 the sum total of their false ‘‘learning’’ concerning 
 this epoch-making theory. How far this notion is 
 from the real teachings of scientists has been well 
 put in the following words of Doctor Hillis taken 
 from The Forum, for July, 1928: ‘‘It is, however, 
 not accurate in terms of science to say that man 
 came upward from the ape and the monkey,—indeed 
 it is quite untrue to science to hint at such an 
 affirmation. What science does say is that ages 
 ago the life path parted at a point where the ances- 
 tors of man started toward a thin skull and a large 
 brain, while the other physical line started toward 
 an ever-thickening skull with a stationary brain and 
 after untold ages has developed into the ape. Mil- 
 lions of years after these two lines parted company, 
 one being became man, standing forth under the 
 
56 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 stars and with adoring thoughts answering certain 
 signals from the sky. The answer is not which 
 origin would we prefer, but which origin represents 
 fact in history.’’ 
 
 The question of my friend is simply the cen- 
 turies-old question which has been asked about 
 every great discovery of science. Men do not like to 
 be jostled from their comfortable niches of mental 
 security. For ages the heart pumped the blood 
 through the body, but no Harvey perceived it. 
 Gravitation had held sway from nebula to planet, 
 but no Newton explained its law of action. From 
 the beginning of our solar system the earth has 
 been whirling about the sun, but not until ‘‘yester- 
 day’’ did Copernicus and Galileo indicate the path 
 of its motion. For millenniums the lightning flash 
 and the crash of thunder startled men, but no 
 Franklin sought to discover their causes. From the 
 foundations of the earth, the fossil record of the 
 rocks has been as an open book, but no eye, until 
 recent times, was able to read their dialect. The 
 evidences of evolution, too, lay about men in be- 
 wildering profusion, but no Lamarck or Darwin 
 appeared to unravel their meaning. 
 
 But now let us make an earnest effort to dis- 
 cover what evolution is and what it is not. Let 
 us try to understand the evidences upon which this 
 theory rests. Like a jury, we shall sit in judg- 
 ment upon this new view of the development of 
 life. If the evidence seems to be insufficient, we 
 shall not hesitate to condemn it. But if the facts of 
 observation and experiment lead us step by step to 
 
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THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 57 
 
 the irresistible conclusion that evolution is God’s 
 way of working out the divine pattern of the 
 universe, our verdict must proclaim the truth. As 
 Doctor Charles EK. Jefferson said to me in a recent 
 letter, ‘‘If newly discovered truth conflicts with the 
 Bible, or with the Creed, then the interpretation of 
 the Bible and the Creed must be widened to make 
 room for the new facts.’’ 
 
 WHAT EVOLUTION’ MEANS 
 
 Evolution is the scientist’s answer to the eternal 
 question ‘‘How?’’?’ How did this earth and the 
 solar system of which it is a part come about? What 
 was their origin? In what form did this planet take 
 its beginning? When and how have the manifold 
 forms of life of past and present geologic time 
 appeared? Is creation a process or a product? 
 Does it represent a single grand fiat at a compar- 
 atively recent moment of cosmic time, or is it the 
 eradual unfolding throughout the ages of a divine 
 pattern in which the Creator has spun the threads 
 of destiny and woven them into the fabric of fire 
 mist, sun and planet,—of earth and water and life? 
 Is creation still going on, here and now? Is God 
 still at work in His universe? Or, is the product 
 of His handiwork a static thing, a stranger to 
 change and growth? Does the legendary story of 
 creation, written in the childhood of the race, tell 
 us the whole truth about the origin of our world? 
 Must we shut our eyes to the facts of scientific in- 
 vestigation? Are we not permitted to believe that 
 God is still revealing Himself in every new dis- 
 
58 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 covery of science? And may not this progressive 
 revelation be the fundamental fact of evolution? 
 Does God no longer raise up prophets to proclaim 
 His truth? May not the distinguished scientist, 
 Doctor J. S. Haldane, be right when he says ‘‘the 
 life of such a man as Charles Darwin is in truth a 
 standing proof of the existence of God’’? 
 
 Let us get rid at the very outset of the false 
 idea that evolution eliminates God. That ‘‘The 
 heavens declare the glory of God; and the firma- 
 ment showeth His handiwork’’ is as true to-day as 
 when uttered by the Hebrew Psalmist three 
 thousand years ago. In the words of the late 
 Lyman Abbott, appearing in The Outlook for Feb- 
 ruary 15, 1922, ‘‘that evolution removes God from 
 the universe is not true; on the contrary, it shows 
 Him now and always im the universe; it gives a 
 new significance to Christ’s saying, ‘My Father 
 worketh even until now’; it justifies the sacred 
 poet’s declaration, ‘God is never so far as even to 
 be near’; it shows us nature and history full of the 
 presence of God.’’ As we shall see, evolution with- 
 out God is an impossible cenception. 
 
 And as to the relation of evolution to life, let us 
 quote from an article in The World’s Work, for 
 May, 1924, by Professor Vernon Kellogg, one of the 
 foremost scientists of this country. He says, ‘‘Kivo- 
 lution means continuity, means transmutation, the 
 origin of the new from the old; means change, con- 
 tinuous movement, gradatory development. It 
 means genetic (historical) relationship, blood cous- 
 inship, an all-embracing genealogy of life. Every 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 59 
 
 living creature, be it monstrous whale or microscopic 
 phosphorescent animalcule in the ocean, free-roam- 
 ing tiger in the jungle or minute parasite that crawls 
 about over its skin, wheeling eagle surveying its 
 broad domain of air and land over a life span of 
 many years, or swarm of fluttering May-flies danc- 
 ing an evening’s life away about an electric light 
 by the lake shore, giant sequoia holding its proud 
 place in a Sierran forest through thirty centuries, 
 or tenderest bit of transitory moss that nestles at 
 its base—every living creature, large or small, long- 
 lived or ephemeral, active or quiescent, myriad- 
 celled or single-celled, is, in certain fundamental 
 structure and behavior, like every other living crea- 
 ture. It has need, to remain alive, of certain physi- 
 cal and chemical surroundings which every other 
 living creature has to have, and it does certain 
 things which every other creature does.”’ 
 
 And so we may say that evolution in its broad 
 aspects stands for progress, for divine revelation; 
 that it is the method of creation, the eternal ex- 
 pression of the life of God in all created things. It 
 means the kinship of all life. It shows us, as we 
 shall see, that plant and animal life, beginning with 
 the simplest forms, ages and ages ago, so long that 
 it bewilders thought and staggers the imagination to 
 attempt to think of so remote a past, has slowly and 
 without haste evolved into constantly higher forms, 
 until at last the animal line of ascent culminated in 
 man, of whom we may exclaim with Shakespeare, 
 
 What a piece of work is a man! How noble 
 in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and 
 
60 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 moving, how express and admirable! in action how 
 like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the 
 beauty of the world—the paragon of animals! 
 
 And if this lowly origin should seem to any of 
 us repugnant to our pride,—a pride arising from 
 many centuries of self-worship,—let us remember 
 that it does not rob man of his sense of uniqueness. 
 He is the only animal-into whom God has breathed 
 the faculty of reason. He is still the lord of all 
 creation. And his ancestry is a noble one, for it is 
 in accord with the divine plan of the universe, and 
 to be divine is to be noble. 
 
 There is, indeed, something truly noble in this 
 emergence of man from the brute and savage. 
 Driven by the heat of summer, the cold of winter, 
 changing climate, famine and pestilence, peril and 
 hardship, man was forced to struggle and at last to 
 think. Then one day the dreamer appeared in his 
 midst, and with him began the dawn of civilization, 
 for it is to the dreamers that the race owes its 
 homes and inventions and arts and laws and 
 liberties and religions. 
 
 And who can doubt that in it all, from the lowest 
 organism to the soul of the dreamer, we see the 
 life of God as the immanent source and guide of 
 all creation? 
 
 THE HISTORY OF EVOLUTION 
 
 The idea of evolution is older than the Christian 
 religion. It had its origin way back in Greek 
 philosophy. This thought of the continuous 
 development of the universe from the simple to the 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 61 
 
 complex had a wonderful charm for that brilliant 
 race of speculative thinkers. Still, with those early 
 Greeks the theory was only a guess. It was like the 
 happy guess of Democritus concerning the exist- 
 ence of atoms,—a guess which turned out to be 
 surprisingly similar to the experimental theory set 
 forth by John Dalton twenty centuries later. But 
 unfortunately the Greeks placed little value upon 
 observation and experiment. As a result, they ac- 
 cumulated no evidence to support their idea, and no 
 champion appeared in defense of it for many 
 centuries. 
 
 But sooner or later every great idea, if it be 
 true to nature, must find expression. And so it 
 was with evolution. All through the Middle Ages 
 this speculative theory of the Greeks was allowed to 
 slumber, just as for so many centuries their notion 
 that the sun is the center of our solar system, and 
 not the earth, was suppressed. But to many care- 
 ful observers the fact of evolution constantly 
 became more and more apparent. Leonardo da 
 Vinei, that many-sided genius of the Italian Renais- 
 sance had notions of evolution. Finally, during the 
 last decade of the eighteenth century, three dis- 
 tinguished men, independently of one another and 
 practically at the same time, proposed the first 
 explanation of evolution. These men were Goethe 
 of Germany, St. Hilaire of France, and Hrasmus 
 Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin) of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 These pioneers in a new domain of scientific 
 investigation, however, soon found themselves only 
 
62 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 eroping somewhat blindly in search of the truth. 
 Their belief that animals are plastic to their en- 
 vironments, as clay beneath the potter’s fingers, 
 proved to be a superficial and inadequate ex- 
 planation of the undoubted fact of evolution. 
 Strange as it may seem, the first real evidence 
 of evolution was provided by an English surveyor, 
 William Smith, whose keen observation was 
 challenged by the fossil shells preserved in the 
 rocks and soils over which he worked. Fossils had 
 been noted many times before, but they had only 
 excited curiosity. Some had thought them the im- 
 perfect specimens of God’s handiwork in His early 
 attempts at creation. Others had believed that the 
 Creator placed these fossils in the rocks for the 
 express purpose of mystifying men. But not so, 
 this shrewd surveyor. He saw that the fossils were 
 of different kinds, and that they were arranged in 
 regular systems. He began to explore the country 
 for vertical sections of rocks, and wherever he 
 found them, the fossils were always in the same 
 order. He became fascinated with the investiga- 
 tion. He was quick to see that many of these forms 
 were quite different from any then living. There 
 was but one conclusion. They were the fossil 
 remains of extinct animals which had lived in some 
 previous geologic time. As he passed from the 
 older to the newer rocks, the animal life became of 
 a constantly higher and more recent type. 
 Gradually, certain forms of life disappeared and 
 never reappeared in any later rock layers. It was 
 not long until Smith was able to designate the 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 63 
 
 relative age of a rock and the order of its occurrence 
 from the character of its fossil population. 
 Irresistibly the conviction forced itself upon his 
 mind that the earth in past geologic time had been 
 successively inhabited by species of animals which 
 had each in its turn become extinct. An epoch- 
 making idea was this, and one which was destined 
 to bear fruit an hundred-fold. 
 
 And it soon became apparent that intermingled 
 with these evidences of extinct animals were the 
 fossil forms of plants, many of them, too, belonging 
 to species not then living upon the earth. Here 
 were surely the imperishable volumes of Nature’s 
 library. ‘True, the record is fragmentary; its 
 chapters are scattered; and there are many broken 
 lines and missing pages. But it is a marvelous 
 tale that this record has preserved throughout the 
 ages, and its language is so plain that all may 
 understand. These are the real tablets of stone on 
 which the Creator has engraved the progressive 
 record of His handiwork. These fossils are not 
 fictions of the imagination, but enduring evidences 
 which any one may verify anywhere. No one 
 familiar with this overwheming mass of evidence 
 can longer believe that in the beginning God created 
 the vast numbers of animals and plant forms in 
 fixed species, exactly as they exist to-day As we 
 shall see, this belief has now been made utterly 
 impossible. 
 
 But you ask, ‘‘How were these fossils, which give 
 us so vivid a picture of the life in those far-off ages, 
 formed?’’ Let us see. While the sediments which 
 
 ¢ 
 
64 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 formed the rocks in which the fossils occur were 
 still soft, they received the impress of creeping 
 things. They were marked by the waves of the sea 
 and pitted by the raindrops of passing showers. 
 Such sediments were constantly forming about the 
 margins of both salt and fresh water, just as they 
 are to-day. In them innumerable shells and the 
 skeletons of all sorts of animals became embedded, 
 even as the life of the present age is writing upon 
 the plastic tablets of lake and sea bottom its im- 
 perishable record for the countless centuries yet to 
 come. Succeeding layers of sediment covered these 
 dead remains, sometimes to great depths, each layer 
 in turn becoming the fossil burying-ground of what- 
 ever types of life happened to live and die at the 
 time of its formation. During the inconceivably 
 long periods of time which followed, the shifting 
 contours of continents, the gradual elevation of sea 
 bottoms, and the filling of lakes slowly added these 
 deposits, now hardened into rock, to the mainland. 
 To-day, we uncover these indelible impressions of 
 early geologic life with our plowshares, we find 
 them on the canyon’s side, we blast them from the 
 quarries, and we dig them from the mines. In them 
 we read the life story of our planet. And the suc- 
 cessive rock layers unfold for us, too, the leaves of 
 nature’s ancient herbarium. They caught the dying 
 leaf and twig and branch of early geologic forests 
 and preserved for future ages the delicate tracery 
 of their myriad forms. Closing about the tree- 
 trunk, these soft sediments changed it into stone. 
 Not long ago, in the library of the Wyoming 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 65 
 
 Geological and Historical Society, at Wilkes-Barre, 
 Pennsylvania, I saw the fossilized form of a huge 
 tree-stump, taken from a coal mine three hundred 
 feet below the surface. In some far-distant time, 
 millions and millions of years ago, we may be 
 perfectly sure that this stump supported a majestic 
 tree, possibly a monarch, among its associates, 
 towering giant-like into the air and sunshine of 
 some Carboniferous forest. And we know that the 
 long slabs of bark on exhibition, totally different 
 from any forms now living, once covered real trees, 
 throbbing with life and probably clothed in beauty. 
 
 One of the most notable examples of plant 
 fossils ig to be found in the coal beds. That coal is 
 of vegetable origin, ‘‘the litter of primeval swamps 
 and forests,’’ now buried hundreds of feet beneath 
 the surface of the earth, there is not a shadow of 
 doubt. Slowly, through vast periods of time, this 
 erystallized sunshine was accumulated for the 
 world’s present need. But immense as these 
 periods seem to us, they are but fleeting moments 
 in the evolution which fitted our planet for the 
 abode of man. These fossil records, found in such 
 bewildering abundance, enable us to picture in 
 imagination the warm humid climate and the 
 luxuriant vegetation of those coal forests which 
 ante-dated so many millenniums the appearance of 
 man upon earth. 
 
 Here, indeed, are chapters from the early history 
 of the earth and its life which exist in their own 
 right, independently of any myth or legend. And, 
 through the interpretation of the scientist, they 
 
66 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 reveal a record of undoubted truth. We shall refer 
 to this fossil record again in stating the chain of 
 evidence in support of evolution. 
 
 After William Smith came Baron de Cuvier, the 
 leading French scientist of his time and the 
 founder of comparative anatomy, to forge the next 
 link in the preliminary chain of evidence. One day 
 while working in a quarry, workmen unearthed 
 some strange-looking bones. They carried them to 
 Cuvier, and his examination quickly told him that 
 these bones belonged to a species of animal which he 
 had never seen before. With this discovery as a 
 starting-point, Cuvier had within a few years ac- 
 cumulated bones from about twenty-five species of 
 animals that he believed were no longer living upon 
 the earth. A little later in a published volume on 
 fossils, he described for the first time the mammoth, 
 an extinct type of elephant, which many centuries 
 before had roamed throughout Europe and as far 
 north as Siberia. It was clear to Cuvier that many 
 species of animals had lived upon the earth in past 
 geologic time which have since become extinct, and 
 he announced this view in his writings and public 
 lectures. 
 
 But inexplicable as it seems to us to-day, the 
 great Cuvier did not correctly explain the ap- 
 pearance and extinction of these successive species 
 of animal life. A simple but superficial answer at 
 once presented itself. Special acts of creation 
 produced the first species. Then at intervals in 
 world history, great natural catastrophes had oc- 
 curred, completely engulfing the earth and destroy- 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 67 
 
 ing all life upon it, each in turn followed by re- 
 newed acts of special creation to provide new 
 species. Hiven this moderate explanation proved 
 startling to those orthodox individuals and theolo- 
 gians who wished to believe, regardless of the 
 evidence, that rocks, fossils, animals and plants had 
 been created in the beginning by one grand fiat, just 
 as they exist to-day. But with these historic discov- 
 eries and the discussion which they provoked, the 
 outworks of the citadel of special creation fell. No 
 longer could there be any doubt that some sort of 
 evolution had taken place upon this planet. 
 
 Then came Sir Charles Lyell, the greatest 
 geologist of his time, to show that the history of 
 our planet, as revealed in its rocks and fossils, 
 gave no evidence of world-wide catastrophic 
 changes. ‘This temporary refuge of those who 
 blindly fought the progress of scientific investiga- 
 tion seemed about to be swept away. For the first 
 time, a truly great scientist announced his belief 
 that the same slowly acting forces of nature, which 
 we see in operation all about us to-day, have also 
 wrought the changes of the globe in past geologic 
 time. With irresistible logic, he pointed out that 
 the age of the earth, from being but five or six 
 thousand years, as required by the Story of 
 Creation, must be millions and millions of years. 
 To crown it all, he shattered the centuries-old myth 
 that the fossils of the rocks were produced by the 
 Deluge of Noah. The indignation of church leaders 
 and orthodox believers knew no bounds. Lyell was 
 attacked without mercy and for a time he was 
 
68 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 socially ostracized. No attack of the present Fun- 
 damentalist movement against the teachings of 
 evolution can compare with the bitter denunciation 
 of Lyell. Yet to-day, the simple truths which he so 
 ably set forth a century ago have become by 
 common consent a part of the instruction of every 
 school child of the country. Gradually, enlightened 
 churchmen everywhere saw the untenability of their 
 position and quietly withdrew. It was a repetition 
 of the surrender of their predecessors to the 
 Copernican theory of our solar system and a fore- 
 cast of what will be the ultimate verdict concerning 
 the truth of evolution. 
 
 Still, although the fact of evolution could no 
 longer be doubted, no one had come forward with 
 an adequate explanation of the process. And we 
 may say in passing that, while no prominent 
 scientist of the world to-day doubts the fact of 
 evolution, still no entirely satisfactory explanation 
 of all the facts of observation has been provided. 
 This is true of any scientific hypothesis. We never 
 reach ultimate truth. At that time, all of the leading 
 scientists of Europe, including even Lyell, held to 
 the theory of special creation, that is, successive 
 acts of special creation. It may be pointed out that 
 even this view, a view which was taken a century 
 and more ago, discredits the literal truth of the 
 Biblical account, 
 
 Even before this time, Jean Baptiste de 
 Lamarck, a contemporary of Cuvier and one of the 
 most brilliant scientists of any time, had put forth 
 a theory of evolution, based upon facts of direct 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 69 
 
 observation, which in modified form has held fol- 
 lowers even down to the present day. It 1s not too 
 much to say that this French scientist, who did his 
 most important work after he was fifty years of 
 age, was the first great apostle of evolution. But 
 unfortunately the opposition of Cuvier, the most in- 
 fluential zoologist of Europe at that time, doomed 
 Lamarck’s views to a tardy recognition, and he died 
 without receiving the credit that was his due. 
 
 His wide observation and study of fossil forms 
 led him irresistibly to the conclusion that the present 
 types of animal life had been evolved from lower 
 types in accordance with some definite law of 
 Nature. The constantly increasing difficulty which 
 he experienced in drawing sharp lines of distinction 
 between existing species gradually convinced him 
 that all animals have arisen through slow processes 
 of change from some remote parentage. In 
 imagination, Lamarck carried the animal life of the 
 earth backward through vast periods of time to the 
 simplest forms of ancestors. And in so doing he 
 outlined for his own and later generations the essen- 
 tial idea of organic evolution. 
 
 To account for this ceaseless process of contin- 
 uous change, Lamarck put forth his doctrine of the 
 use and disuse of organs and the hereditary trans- 
 mission of acquired traits, or characters. His idea 
 was briefly this. When an organ is used to an un- 
 usual degree, it becomes highly developed, and 
 similarly the disuse of an organ causes it to degen- 
 erate. He held that such organic changes are trans- 
 mitted to the offspring and that the cumulative 
 
70 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 effect of many generations of breeding may either 
 radically change an organ or cause it to disappear 
 entirely. Thus, he thought birds near the seashore 
 developed their long legs from the necessity of wad- 
 ing deeper and deeper in water in search of food. 
 The horse-like ancestors of the giraffe developed a 
 long neck by being driven from grassy meadows 
 into regions which compelled them to obtain their 
 forage by browsing on the foliage of trees. The 
 constant stretching upward after food would elon- 
 gate the neck and the fore limbs. These newly 
 acquired characteristics, he believed, would be trans- 
 mitted to the offspring and after many generations 
 a new species would be evolved. Many more 
 examples might be given, but these are sufficient. 
 
 The theory looked plausible, and it found many 
 adherents. But a century and more of observation 
 and experiment since Lamarck’s time seems to 
 have demonstrated that the inheritance of acquired 
 characters never takes place. Doctor Albert KE. 
 Wiggam in his splendid book, The Fruit of the 
 Family Tree, has developed this point at consider- 
 able length. Lamarck’s bold announcement of a 
 definite theory of evolution at that early time 
 stamps him as a man of genius, but his particular 
 method of accounting for the facts of observation 
 has fallen by the wayside. Scientists are always 
 ready to throw aside a theory which does not 
 square with the facts. 
 
 And right here let it be stated that while 
 scientists differ widely as to the precise methods by 
 which evolution has come about, they are practically 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 71 
 
 unanimous as to the fact of this progressive change 
 from lower to higher forms of animal and plant 
 life. It could not be otherwise, for the overwhelming 
 abundance of evidence makes any other view im- 
 possible. And yet I wish to emphasize over and 
 over throughout these pages the outstanding failure 
 of many scientists to realize that evolution is 
 nothing more than a description of God’s way of 
 working. It simply substitutes for the poetical 
 Story of Creation, as outlined in Genesis, the un- 
 doubted facts of scientific investigation. But any 
 attempt to account for the origin of the universe 
 and the life of our planet without placing back of it 
 the intelligent thought and purpose of an Infinite 
 Creator is doomed to utter and complete failure. 
 Even had the results of observation and experiment 
 borne out Lamarck’s theory of the progressive 
 development of animal species, this discovery could 
 have meant only that men had drawn aside the veil 
 and caught a glimpse of the divine process of 
 creation. The tragedy of much of the scientific and 
 theological discussion in this field during the last 
 half-century and more has been due to the mis- 
 understanding of this simple fact. Science and 
 religion each stands in its own right, and there never 
 has needed to be any essential conflict between 
 them. 
 
 Conditions did not seem right a century ago, 
 even among scientists, for a favorable reception of 
 Lamarck’s theory of evolution. But in 1831, just two 
 years after the death of the great Frenchman, there 
 began a voyage of discovery, destined to have an in- 
 
2 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 fluence upon the intellectual development of men, 
 challenging in its far-reaching importance the in- 
 fluence of that other voyage of discovery made ‘in 
 1492, In that year, the British ship Beagle, in 
 command of Captain Fitz-Roy, began its historic 
 voyage around the world, a voyage which lasted for 
 five years. There would have been nothing suf- 
 ficiently noteworthy about this expedition to mark 
 it for everlasting remembrance throughout the 
 centuries to come, had it not been for the presence 
 on board of Charles Darwin as official naturalist. 
 Darwin was then but twenty-two years old, having 
 been born on February 12, 1809, the same day which 
 marked the birth of the immortal Lincoln. The 
 simultaneous birth of two such giant leaders of the 
 race should forever consecrate that day as one of 
 the most significant among the annals of men. 
 The purpose of the expedition of the Beagle was 
 to make a survey of unexplored regions in the 
 lower portions of South America and of certain 
 islands in the Pacific. Darwin, the son of a dis- 
 tinguished family and an ardent naturalist from his 
 boyhood up, eagerly welcomed this opportunity to 
 study first-hand the rocks, and the animal and plant 
 life, both past and present, of unknown lands. He 
 little knew, as he sailed away, that he should return 
 with a mass of evidence so complete and over- 
 whelming in its significance as to change not only 
 his own view of the development of life upon this 
 planet but also the view of the large majority of 
 thinking men. In a word, he was to forge a chain of 
 evidence in support of evolution, so complete and 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION ri’ 
 
 convineing that only he who wilfully refused to 
 examine the facts could longer doubt the truth of 
 this all-embracing law of organic development. 
 And who shall say that in these epoch-making dis- 
 coveries it is impossible to desery the guidance of 
 an infinite and all-wise Purpose? Darwin started 
 out a believer in special creations He came back 
 the world’s foremost apostle of evolution, but not 
 an atheist. 
 
 Almost overnight Darwin became a geologist, 
 a botanist and a zoologist. Wherever the ship 
 landed, the rocks and their fossils became the 
 especial object of his study. His explorations were 
 confined chiefly to long journeys in the interior of 
 South America and to expeditions in the Galapagos 
 archipelago, a group of volcanic islands some five 
 hundred miles west of the coast of Ecuador. In 
 these observations three sets of facts challenged his 
 attention. (1) Buried in the surface deposits of the 
 great grassy plains of Argentina, Darwin discovered 
 the fossil remains of huge extinct animals covered 
 with armor, like that of the existing armadillos. 
 This discovery pointed irresistibly to the conclusion 
 that the present species had been evolved in some 
 manner from those which had become extinct. And 
 it is perfectly legitimate to ask those who do not 
 wish to believe in evolution how they would account 
 for such variation and such resemblance. (2) And 
 then again, as Darwin moved southward, he found 
 that certain species of animals were replaced by 
 others which closely resembled them, and yet were 
 distinct. To his keen mind a very plausible ex- 
 
14 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 planation presented itself. As the animals of a 
 single species spread over large areas, particular 
 groups would become isolated. Throughout long 
 periods of time, these isolated groups, in response 
 to their different environments, would become so 
 modified as to give rise to several new species. 
 Here evolution seemed to have taken place among 
 species actually living upon the earth at that time. 
 (3) But most convincing of all were the evidences 
 obtained from the Galapagos Islands. Here was a 
 group of islands far from the mainland, rich in 
 animal and plant life, which decidedly resembled 
 that of the American Continent, and yet consisted 
 of distinct species. Furthermore, each island of the 
 group possessed a considerable number of species 
 peculiar to itself, that is, related to but differing 
 from those found on the other islands. Now what 
 explanation was Darwin to give? What explanation 
 would you give such facts of observation? 
 Would you turn to the legends of Genesis and chloro- 
 form your intellect, or would you exercise your God- 
 given right to think and attempt to construct an 
 hypothesis which should account for things as they 
 are? As it seemed to Darwin and as it has seemed 
 to all thinking men since, just two explanations 
 offered themselves. One might stifle his reason and 
 blindly profess to believe that in the beginning God 
 created for these islands this peculiar animal and 
 plant life closely resembling the life on the Amer- 
 ican mainland and yet distinct from it and also 
 distinct from any other species the world over. 
 Or, one might accept the almost inevitable conclusion 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 15 
 
 that the first forms of life were brought to these 
 islands from the mainland many centuries ago by 
 wind and wave and winged carrier and that by a 
 gradual process of evolution the original types in 
 response to a new environment have changed into 
 the present species. This latter was the conclusion 
 of Darwin, and it has been the conclusion of every 
 thoughtful person since, whether he be scientist or 
 Christian prophet. And let it be clearly understood 
 that this view by no means excludes the necessity 
 for a Divine Creator. It simply makes the life of 
 these islands a part of the great scheme of creation, 
 which began in the far distant past and has con- 
 tinued on through countless eons to the present 
 moment. Is there anything ignoble in such a view? 
 Does it not make of creation a process of marvelous 
 grandeur and beauty, continuing on from age to 
 age? In place of a Mighty Magician do we not have 
 the Master Mind of the universe whose life is the | 
 - source and sustainer of all created things? 
 
 But Darwin had only begun. Although he re- 
 turned from his voyage on the Beagle in 1836, it was 
 not until 1859, more than twenty years later, that he 
 published his great book, The Origin of Species. He 
 did not rush before the public with his new-born 
 theory. He felt that even yet he might be wrong. 
 Patiently, he devoted year after year to the accu- 
 mulation of facts of observation. Scarcely else- 
 where in the history of science is there a parallel to 
 such earnest seeking after truth. When the oppo- 
 nents of evolution assert that ‘‘Neither Darwin nor 
 his supporters have been able to find a fact in the 
 
16 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 universe to support their hypothesis,’’ it would be 
 well for them to take down from its shelf Darwin’s 
 Origin of Species and acquaint themselves with the 
 bewildering richness of the evidence, so overwhelm- 
 ing in its completeness that only he who will not 
 listen can doubt the truth of this great law. The 
 full case for evolution, we shall state a little later. 
 
 Still Darwin was not content to rest with the 
 piling up of evidence in support of the general law 
 of evolution. He felt that there must be some way 
 of accounting for the process of evolution itself. But 
 for a long time he could find no key to the solution 
 of his problem. Although convinced that animals 
 and plants have slowly changed from one species to 
 another, still the mystery of how these changes came 
 about only deepened, the more he pondered the sub- 
 ject. But this problem of progressive creation had 
 been brought face to face with a master mind. Dar- 
 win viewed it from every angle. At length his 
 attention was directed to the work of breeders in 
 developing new variations of domesticated animals 
 and plants. He saw that many quite different races 
 of dogs have been bred from one wild stock. The 
 same was true of cattle and fowls. The Shetland 
 pony, the thoroughbred racer, and the work horse 
 have a common parentage. Among plants, the cab- | 
 bage, the cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and kale have 
 descended from a common ancestor, the wild cab- 
 bage. And every one is familiar with the miracles 
 in artificial breeding which have been produced 
 by Luther Burbank. Here Darwin saw evolution 
 taking place under his very eyes. He saw how 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 17 
 
 breeders, by selecting certain accidental variations 
 in particular animals, are able to develop a type 
 quite different from the parent form. And these 
 facts gave Darwin his clue. It was quite clear to 
 him that from the standpoint of special creation 
 such modifications of animal and plant life could 
 never occur. Species could never vary. But here 
 was the fact of variation, just as it might have oc- 
 curred centuries ago on the Galapagos Islands. 
 
 And yet Darwin had taken only the first step. 
 It was all very well to produce variations in species 
 by artificial selection, but what in Nature could take 
 the place of the breeder, the conscious director of 
 the process? Then one day Darwin chanced to read 
 Malthus’ famous essay on Population, and this 
 happy circumstance gave to him one more key to the 
 solution of his problem. The keen struggle for ex- 
 istence between the constantly increasing popula- 
 tions of the globe, so vividly pictured by Malthus, 
 was just the factor needed by Darwin to complete 
 his explanation. This now famous theory rests upon 
 four factors, each of which is an undisputed fact: 
 variability, the struggle for existence, natural selec- 
 tion, or the ‘‘survival of the fittest,’’ and heredity. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that Alfred Russell 
 Wallace, a distinguished contemporary of Darwin, 
 independently put forth a precisely similar theory 
 at practically the same time. The magnanimity dis- 
 played by each discoverer toward the other is a 
 beautiful incident in the history of science. 
 
 As to variability, it is a matter of common ob- 
 servation that the individual members of any species 
 
18 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 always differ slightly among themselves and from 
 the parent members. No two individuals are exactly 
 alike. 
 
 The struggle for existence is an outstanding ex- 
 perience of all life, in all environments, the world 
 over. Keen, often ruthless, never-ceasing, with a 
 sweep that includes all living forms, wielding a scep- 
 ter of imperial authority,—this arbiter of the tides 
 of life, constantly sifting and selecting, seems to 
 decide upon which individuals shall be conferred the 
 privilege of continuing the life stream through suc- 
 ceeding generations and which shall be fated to 
 return quickly to the source from which they sprang. 
 A little reflection will serve to show that many more 
 offspring are produced than can possibly survive. 
 As Professor Scott, of Princeton, says, ‘‘if every 
 ege of the herring should develop to an adult fish 
 and reproduce in its turn, it would not be long until 
 the Atlantic Ocean would fail to contain them.”’ 
 Considering the human family, if we place a gen- 
 eration at twenty-five years and allow four children 
 per family, the descendants from a single pair, 
 barring death by accident, disease, or starvation, 
 would in one thousand years reach the staggering 
 total of a million million individuals. In a certain 
 field there may be growing a thousand plants. Put- 
 ting the number of seeds per plant at one hundred 
 and assuming no mishaps, we should expect one 
 hundred thousand plants the following season. Yet 
 examination discloses that at the end of the season 
 there are still but one thousand adult plants. What 
 is the explanation? We must find it in the struggle 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 19 
 
 for existence. Accident, disease, or starvation have 
 claimed ninety-nine out of every hundred plantlets. 
 That particular field did not afford room and sus- 
 tenance for more than one thousand mature plants. 
 And this serves to illustrate the biological law that, 
 eliminating unusual life conditions, the number of 
 adult members of any species remains practically 
 the same from year to year. Therefore, we see that 
 in this competition for food, air, light and suitable 
 living conditions, as well as in the resistance to 
 voracious enemies and the ravages of disease many 
 must die. This seems to be a fundamental law of 
 life. The incident of death looms large as a neces- 
 sary factor in the survival of any species. ‘‘Many 
 are called, but few chosen.’’ 
 
 But the big factor in Darwin’s explanation of 
 evolution and the one which will forever be insep- 
 arably associated with his name is natural selection, 
 or in the more fitting phrase coined by Herbert 
 Spencer, the survival of the fittest. And yet what 
 determines which offspring shall survive and which 
 shall perish? What constitutes the magic wand of 
 fate? Is it a mere matter of chance, or does some 
 definite law or process govern in this border-land of 
 life and death? What separates the sheep from the 
 goats? What selects the fit and rejects the unfit? 
 For the most satisfactory answer to these perplex- 
 ing questions, we are indebted to Darwin and his 
 theory of natural selection. 
 
 Let us illustrate. Suppose we were to consider 
 one hundred individuals, exactly alike in every re- 
 spect. It would then be a pure matter of accidént 
 
80 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 as to which would survive and which would die. But 
 individuals are never identical. There is always the 
 inevitable factor of variability. And these chance 
 variations may give to particular individuals a bet- 
 ter adaptation to their environment and conse- 
 quently a decided advantage in the struggle for 
 existence. The stronger individuals succeed, while 
 the weaker ones fail. The successful member of 
 any group is the one which happens to be a little 
 better adapted to his environment than are his 
 associates. The unsearchable mystery of life and 
 its development has endowed certain individuals 
 with advantages over their fellows. Why this 
 should be, science is totally unable to say, but it is 
 thought this outstanding fact of variation becomes 
 the arbiter of destiny and a controlling influence of 
 tremendous import in the evolution of living forms. 
 And thus we see that there comes about a nat- 
 ural selection of those individuals which are best 
 equipped to meet the life conditions of their environ- 
 ments. We may liken the process to a sieve which 
 eliminates the weak and disadvantageously adapted 
 members of a race or species and preserves the fit. 
 It was the master key which unlocked for Darwin 
 the very ante-room to the eternal mysteries of life 
 and its manifold changes. As we shall see, how- 
 ever, natural selection, in the sense of blind chance, 
 is an utterly unthinkable explanation of evolution. 
 
 And finally, as the capstone to the edifice of 
 evolution, we have the fact of heredity. Without 
 it, there might be chance variation, but not pro- 
 gressive variation. Without the possibility of 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 81 
 
 transmitting to offspring those favorable charac- 
 teristics which have enabled certain individuals to 
 conquer their environment and win out in the strug- 
 gle for existence, there could be no upward climb 
 of evolution. But heredity performs precisely this 
 service. And it is right here that Darwin’s theory 
 differs from that of Lamarck. Lamarek held 
 to the transmission of characteristics acquired 
 during the lifetime of the individual. But, as has 
 already been pointed out, experience indicates that 
 this never occurs. On the other hand, the chance 
 variations which an individual inherits from its 
 parents are transmissible to offspring. The cumu- 
 lative effect over many generations, resulting from 
 the continuous transmission of favorable character- 
 istics, Darwin clearly saw would result in very ex- 
 tensive changes and possibly in the production of 
 new species. 
 
 August Weismann, who died in 1914, was the 
 scientist who first drew attention to the modification 
 of the germ-plasm as a possible explanation of the 
 origin of new species. A convert to the theory of 
 evolution from his first reading of The Origin of 
 Species in 1861, he will be remembered chiefly for 
 his theories of heredity. They all centered about 
 what he called the germ-plasm. By this is meant that 
 particular part of the germ-cells which transmits 
 from generation to generation the heredity factors. 
 He held that this hereditary principle is absolutely 
 continuous from the present time back to the earliest 
 generations of living things. In substance, all of his 
 major propositions as regards the germ-plasm 
 
82 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 theory are accepted by scientists. As a result of 
 extensive experiments covering many generations, 
 he became convinced that acquired characters are 
 never inherited by offspring. The question is not 
 now as to whether such characters may be trans- 
 mitted, but whether environment can so modify the 
 germ-plasm as to produce changes in subsequent 
 generations. Weismann admitted that this might be 
 true, but contended that the character of such 
 changes is wholly unpredictable. In this view, later 
 scientists concur. Hnvironment, however, may have 
 a larger influence than Weismann was willing to 
 concede. It is interesting to know that this early 
 apostle of evolution was an even stronger advocate 
 of natural selection than Darwin himself. 
 
 Here at last was a workable theory of evolution. 
 Kiven after more than a half-century of hostile erit- 
 icism and merciless attack from theologian and 
 scientist alike, natural selection stands to-day as the 
 most plausible descriptive explanation of the pro- 
 cess of evolution that has yet been set forth. Given 
 simple forms of life with the inherent capacity to 
 variation in their offspring, together with a keen 
 struggle for existence and the fact of heredity, and 
 we can easily see how through vast periods of time 
 successive species may originate. Starting with the 
 invertebrates and passing through the fishes, am- 
 phibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the life line 
 culminated in the appearance of man, ‘‘a little lower 
 than the angels, crowned with glory and honor.’’ 
 
 That there are many obscure points in the appli- 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 83 
 
 eation of natural selection to the actual process of 
 progressive creation, even the most ardent ad- 
 herents of this doctrine will not deny. This fact, 
 however, in no way challenges the overshadowing 
 truth of evolution itself. That stands in its own 
 right. About it there is not the slightest doubt. 
 Whatever obscurity prevails simply means that as 
 yet science sees through a glass darkly. Men have 
 not been able to formulate a theory big enough to 
 encompass the Infinite and to disclose in detail the 
 manifold workings of the divine process of creation. 
 Sketched against the background of the ages, we see 
 in shadowy outline the salient features of a great 
 law. We have come within sight of God. But that 
 our persistent knockings at the door of knowledge 
 will ever wrest from the Infinite the eternal mys- 
 tery of life is altogether improbable. 
 
 With the announcement of Darwin’s theory in 
 1859, a tremendous storm broke loose. Man did not 
 hke to be dethroned from his exalted position as a 
 being distinct in his origin from the teeming life of 
 the sea, the beasts of the jungle, and the fowls of the 
 air. Theologians felt that this latest assumption of 
 Science was an unwarranted invasion of their sacred 
 domain of divine privilege and authority. Not since 
 the days of Galileo had such a terrific battle shaken 
 the scientific and theological world. The bitter 
 and intemperate denunciation of Darwin knew no 
 bounds. The thunderings of the pulpit against his 
 alleged ‘‘attempt to dethrone God’’ and to establish 
 ‘“a brutal philosophy’’ are being reechoed to-day by 
 religious enthusiasts in their last stand for a cause 
 
84 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 which was lost a half-century ago. Many pages 
 might be filled with the frenzied statements which 
 emanated both from the Protestant and the Cath- 
 olic churches. But it was all to no purpose. Lyell, 
 the great Scotch geologist, and a devout Christian, 
 after a careful weighing of the evidence, reluctantly 
 announced his complete conversion to the Darwinian 
 view. Huxley, Spencer, Hooker, Gray and Haeckel, 
 the leading scientists of the time, quickly followed. 
 Hspecially did Thomas Huxley become the most able 
 defender of the outposts of the new scientific posi- 
 tion. But the facts were with the general theory 
 of evolution, and, as facts are stubborn things, they 
 won. 
 
 Gradually, as the years passed and the smoke of 
 battle cleared away, the theologians discovered that 
 the new belief did not destroy their religious faith 
 after all. The overwhelming weight of evidence 
 had begun to tell. Men found that they could 
 not retain their intellectual self-respect and still 
 cling to the literal truth of the legendary stories 
 of Genesis. The spiritual truth of these poetic inter- 
 pretations of the fundamental fact of creation was 
 as great as ever, but, as a tenet of theological belief, 
 this dogma of a letter-proof revelation of the divine 
 process passed into eclipse. Slowly the truth and 
 beauty of the new conception of creation took hold 
 of the minds of men. Temple, the Bishop of Lon- 
 don, and one of the most influential thinkers of that 
 time, announced his acceptance of the new revela- 
 tion in the following words: ‘‘It seems something 
 more majestic, more befitting him to whom a thou- 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 85 
 
 sand years are as one day, thus to impress his will 
 once for all on his creation, and provide for all the 
 countless varieties by this one original impress, than 
 by special acts of creation to be perpetually mod- 
 ifying what he had previously made.’’ When Dar- 
 win died in 1882, so complete had been the victory 
 for his views that he was accorded by common 
 consent a burial place in Westminster Abbey beside 
 the grave of Sir Isaac Newton. 
 
 The theological controversy seemed at an end. 
 The truth of evolution had won a sweeping victory. 
 No one dreamed that the first quarter of the follow- 
 ing century would see the dying embers of this 
 burned-out struggle fanned into the passionate and 
 fitful flames of unreasoning fanaticism and religious 
 zeal. But while the intellectual classes early became 
 reconciled to the new view of creation and were 
 easily convinced by the evidence, the masses ap- 
 parently did not sense that there had been any battle 
 at all. And, when they awoke to the implications of 
 the new learning, it seemed to many of them that 
 the bed-rock foundation of their religious faith was 
 slipping from beneath their feet. Taking advantage 
 of this situation, certain church leaders, styling 
 themselves Fundamentalists and harking back to 
 the unenlightened days of the Middle Ages, have 
 sought to gain a temporary victory for reaction and 
 ignorance. But they have ranged themselves in de- 
 fense of a cause which has lost every important 
 battle in the history of Christianity. In these re- 
 ligious zealots we see reincarnated the spirit of 
 bigotry and intolerance which burned Bruno at the 
 
86 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GO 
 
 stake, persecuted Galileo, brought about the horrors 
 of the Inquisition, sanctioned the frightfulness of 
 witchcraft, opposed the amelioration of human suf- 
 fering through the advance of medical science, and 
 sought to thwart intellectual growth and the evolu- 
 tion of the human soul. But these abortive efforts 
 can not long stay the triumph of a cause whose truth 
 is ‘‘as red as blood, as certain as sunshine, as vital 
 as the tides of spring, as powerful as gravity, with 
 a victory that is inevitable.’’ 
 
 Truth crushed to earth shall rise again; 
 The eternal years of God are hers; 
 But Error wounded writhes with pain, 
 
 And dies among his worshippers. 
 
 The dead hand of the past can not long fetter the 
 living present. It is as utterly futile to attempt to 
 stay the march of scientific progress or turn back 
 the hands of Time to the dark night of medieval 
 superstition as to seek to prevent the rising of the 
 tides. Dogmatism has had its day. Its sun has set. 
 The geography of the ancient world has been re- 
 fasioned in the light of the discoveries of Columbus 
 and Magellan. The heavens of the early church 
 have been superseded by those revealed through the 
 telescope of Galileo. The movements of the heavenly 
 bodies have been brought under the majestic sway of 
 Newton’s universal law of gravitation. Fetish has 
 given place to enlightened medical research and the 
 miracles of modern surgery. The atoms and the 
 molecules are yielding up their age-old secrets of 
 energy and matter. The boundless ether carries the 
 human voice to the uttermost parts of the earth. 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 87 
 
 The sun of truth, both spiritual and scientific, is 
 risen. The mists of ignorance, doubt and super- 
 stition can not long obscure its rays. And we may 
 confidently believe that the divine law of evolution, 
 linking as it does in one majestic plan of creation 
 the formless chaos of the fire mist with the God- 
 conscious soul of man, will in the no distant future 
 receive, from scientist and Christian prophet alike, 
 the world-wide recognition of its sovereign sway. 
 The very march of scientific and spiritual progress 
 is in itself an evolution of human knowledge. It is, 
 indeed, a manifestation of the ‘‘life of God in the 
 soul of man.’’ 
 
 THE DARWINIAN VIEW TO-DAY 
 
 It can not be emphasized too strongly that the 
 fate of evolution is in no way bound up with the 
 success or failure of the Darwinian theory of nat- 
 ural selection. Among scientific men, Darwin’s 
 particular explanation of the biological facts of the 
 geologic past and the dynamic present finds many 
 opponents, but the broad outlines of evolution are 
 established beyond the possibility of successful 
 refutation. William Bateson, one of the foremost 
 scientists of England, said in a recent address at 
 Toronto: ‘‘Our doubts are not as to the reality 
 or truth of evolution, but as to the origin of species, 
 a technical, almost domestic problem. Any day that 
 problem may be solved. The discoveries of the last 
 twenty-five years enable us for the first time to dis- 
 cuss these questions intelligently and on a basis of 
 fact,’’ 
 
88 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 As to the early, or even ultimate, solution of the 
 fundamental problem of the origin of species, Pro- 
 fessor Bateson is probably too optimistic. Beyond 
 question, we shall learn more concerning the me- 
 chanical factors of the process, but the ultimate 
 cause can not be stated in mechanical terms. The 
 simple fact is that, when man attempts to fathom 
 the unsearchable mystery of creation itself, the 
 problem is too stupendous for his finite powers. 
 The only adequate explanation is Divine Intelli- 
 gence, working in and through the manifold forms 
 of energy and life. The defenders of natural selec- 
 tion can never explain on any mechanical basis the 
 real cause of the vital changes in the germ-plasm 
 and the consequent variations among the individual 
 members of a species. This is the crux of the whole 
 matter. We can not escape it. God is just as essen- 
 tial to the production of these changes,—changes 
 without which evolution could never have started,— 
 as he was for the creation of the Hebrew world ac- 
 cording to Genesis. 
 
 The theory of natural selection says: given a 
 tendency to variation, the struggle for existence, 
 and heredity, and Nature will select and evolve on a 
 constantly ascending curve of development the mul- 
 titudinous species of animal and plant life. Yes, 
 but who gives this inherent tendency to variation? 
 There must be an adequate cause. Life without a 
 source, a self-running vitalistic system, is as impos- 
 sible in the world of living organisms as is perpetual 
 motion in the realm of mechanics. Back of it all we 
 must place the Supreme Lawgiver of the universe, 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 89 
 
 And what is Nature but a manifestation of God? 
 The factors in the theory of natural selection un- 
 doubtedly give a more or less truthful description 
 of God’s method of creation, but let it be emphasized 
 that they are only description. For the poetic, 
 legendary account of creation, as given in Genesis, 
 evolution substitutes the undisputed facts of scien- 
 tific investigation. But back of it all must stand the 
 Thought and Purpose and Intelligence of an In- 
 finite Creator. 
 
 The very expression ‘‘survival of the fittest?’ 
 implies purpose. An organism must be fit for 
 something,—fit to live, fit for its environment, fit 
 to take its place in the vast scheme of creation 
 whose beginning and end are beyond the limits of 
 our imaginations. The language of evolution itself 
 is full of the idea of personality. Natural selection 
 implies a selector, and we can not relegate this fun- 
 damental factor of the process to the blind chance 
 largely involved in the struggle for existence. No, 
 we can not get away from the idea of God. Just as 
 in the days of the Hebrew prophet, He is still the 
 overshadowing fact of all existence. Just as in arti- 
 ficial breeding man must select those characteristics 
 which he wishes to develop, so in Nature must the 
 inherent Purpose of the Infinite produce and select 
 those variations which will make for divine progress. 
 
 Finally, there is very much for which natural 
 selection seems totally unable to account. To cite 
 just one example, natural selection, if it is to become 
 an adequate and workable theory, must account for 
 the perfect development of such a delicately ad- 
 
90 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 justed organ as the human eye, and that by a series 
 of chance variations which must run the continually 
 repeated risk of obliteration through cross-breeding. 
 Under such requirements, the sheer inadequacy of 
 the theory at once becomes apparent. ‘The in- 
 evitable rule of law which seems to control these 
 progressive changes is too big to be explained with- 
 out assuming a Divine Lawgiver. Natural selection 
 is undoubtedly a large factor in the process of evo- 
 lution, but that it is an all-sufficient explanation 
 few scientists would now wish to assert. To hold 
 that natural selection alone is the ‘‘workman, or 
 architect, that selects or rejects’’ from the inherited 
 variations of individuals those which make for evo- 
 lutionary progress is to credit the blind chance of a 
 mechanistic process with achievements so marvelous 
 that it is unthinkable that they could be accomplished 
 by anything less than Intelligent Purpose. Natural 
 selection, important as it is, is but a single phase 
 of the Divine Plan of Creation. 
 
 LATER THEORIES 
 
 Hugo De Vries, a Dutch botanist, has thrown 
 new light upon the process of evolution, but the 
 inscrutable mystery of it all is as deep as ever. 
 Some twenty years ago, while botanizing in his 
 native country, he discovered that here and there 
 a certain primrose, which had been introduced from 
 the United States, would suddenly and with no ap- 
 parent cause give rise to an entirely distinct species. 
 This truly remarkable occurrence led De Vries to 
 conduct a series of experiments in his Botanical 
 Garden, running over a period of a number of years, 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 91 
 
 The result of these elaborate experiments was the 
 discovery that now and then an entirely new sort 
 of individual would suddenly appear in a pedigree. 
 De Vries bred from that flower fourteen new per- 
 manent varieties. These inexplicable changes 
 in the plant forms, De Vries called ‘‘mutations,’’ 
 and he used them as the basis of a new explanation 
 of evolution. 
 
 De Vries holds that it is not the small variations 
 among individuals which determine the course of 
 evolution, but these sudden and larger mutations. 
 Otherwise, his theory agrees precisely with Dar- 
 win’s. And yet Darwin recognized that theoretically 
 new species might suddenly arise. It is believed 
 that these mutations are transmitted through the 
 germ-plasm of the parents, but as to their real cause 
 we are as much in the dark as ever. Mutations, both 
 among plants and animals are an undoubted fact, 
 but why they should occur, no scientist can say. To 
 understand them we should have to know what God 
 is. In the words of Tennyson, 
 
 Flower in the crannied wall, 
 
 I pluck you out of the crannies, 
 
 I hold you here, root and all in my hand, 
 Little flower,—but if I could understand 
 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 
 I should know what God and man is. 
 
 Mutations are interesting as evidence of the 
 probable way in which new species have occurred in 
 Nature, but nothing more. As Professor William B. 
 Scott, of Princeton, says in his Theory of Evolution, 
 “Interesting and important as the mutation theory 
 
92 THROUGH SCIENGE TO GOD 
 
 undoubtedly is, it offers no explanation of the phe- 
 nomena, for the cause of such sudden changes 
 remains a complete mystery. The seat of the 
 change, it can hardly be questioned, must be sought 
 in the germ-plasm of one or both parents, but we 
 have not the least inkling of how such modification 
 is brought about.’’* 
 
 And when at the end of the journey, this search 
 for the hidden cause of life and its manifold changes 
 brings us face to face with an insoluble mystery, 
 what else can man substitute for this eternal ques- 
 tion mark of the ages, except God? 
 
 Back in the ’sixties of the last century, Johann 
 Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, carried out 
 some epoch-making experiments in which he dis- 
 covered important factors involved in the laws of 
 heredity. But, again, these investigations have 
 thrown little light upon the fundamental problems 
 of evolution. In some respects, they have even 
 complicated it. Unquestionably these Mendelian 
 laws, which we can not describe here, are immensely 
 valuable to breeders and of the utmost significance 
 to the science of genetics, but they have opened no 
 new door to the ultimate explanation of this master 
 law of creation. As well seek to understand the 
 essence of the law of gravitation or the inmost secret 
 of electricity as to compass the origin and evolution 
 of life. 
 
 Let it be said, too, that while scientists know 
 much more about evolution than was known a half- 
 century ago, there is much less certainty as to the 
 
 *The Macmillan Company, 1917, 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 93 
 
 controlling causes. The various theories do not fully 
 explain. Men are still groping for the truth. Yet, 
 we may say with perfect confidence that, whatever 
 may be the discoveries of the future, no explanation 
 ean ever supersede the necessity for a Divine Being 
 as the energizing source and immanent guide of all 
 creation. 
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION 
 
 Now let us look for the evidences of evolution 
 itself. There we shall be on sure ground. We shall 
 not be seeking to explain the mystery of the process, 
 but simply to discover the fact of ceaseless organic 
 change, as it is written in the fossil dialect of the 
 rocks and revealed in the abundant evidence from 
 other sources. But, judge and jury that we are, let 
 us approach this case with an open mind and listen 
 to the evidence with an impartial ear. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FROM CLASSIFICATION 
 
 One of the chief functions of botanists and zoolo- 
 gists in the early days of the science was the classi- 
 cation of animals and plants. And this work is still 
 a fascinating and important branch of biological 
 pursuits. After a prodigious amount of critical 
 study, living forms are arranged in groups known as 
 species, genera, families, sub-orders, orders, classes, 
 and branches, or phyla. We need not be frightened at 
 this somewhat formidable array of terms. Let us 
 illustrate their meanings with examples. We will 
 start with the European wolf and follow him along 
 this ascending order of groups wherever he may 
 
94 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 lead us. First of all, he belongs to the species 
 known as Lupus, which is the Latin word for wolf. 
 All the members of this species are more like one 
 another than they are like other kinds, or species, of 
 wolves. Still there are some other species, each 
 given a Latin name, and all of them are placed in 
 the genus called Canis. It is interesting to know 
 that dogs, believed to be domesticated wolves, con- 
 stitute one species of this genus. Now the true 
 wolves, jackals, foxes and many other dog-like ani- 
 mals are grouped together in one family named 
 Canidae. All of these forms are more or less re- 
 lated to such beasts of prey as cats, bears, otters, 
 raccoons, weasels, ete. Therefore these families are 
 all placed in a sub-order known as Fissipedia. You 
 will note that the relationship constantly becomes 
 more remote, the further up the scale we go. These 
 terrestrial forms are now joined with such marine 
 animals as seals, sea-lions, walruses, etc., to form 
 the order designated as Carnivora. This order, 
 together with several others, which have many char- 
 acteristics in common, is placed in the class named 
 Mammalha. And finally this class of mammals is 
 grouped with several others in the one big branch 
 of Vertebrata, or vertebrates, distinguished for 
 having a backbone. 
 
 Let us next consider that there are just two ways 
 of explaining the relationships existing between 
 these various groups: the Biblical method of special 
 creation and the scientific method of evolution. If 
 species have appeared upon the earth in response to 
 a distinct act of special creation in each case, then 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 95 
 
 these seeming relationships are wholly ideal, or 
 arbitrary, and there is no real kinship between the 
 different species of a genus. That is, species were 
 absolutely fixed by the Creator in the beginning and 
 there never has been and never can be any instance 
 of the origin of one species from another. This 
 was the view which prevailed down to the time of 
 Darwin. 
 
 The first investigator to find a stumbling-block 
 to the acceptance of this theory of special creation 
 was Lamarck. He was the first scientist to under- 
 take a thorough and systematic classification of the 
 lowly forms of animal life, known as invertebrates. 
 But he soon found that the clear distinction of one 
 species from another was often an exceedingly dif- 
 ficult thing to make. And this has been the expe- 
 rience of every similar investigator since. The wide 
 variations among the individuals of a single species 
 and the almost insensible gradations of the species 
 of the same genus into one another make this work 
 of classification a problem of marvelous complexity. 
 Indeed, Lamarck came to the conclusion that there 
 is no hard and fast line between species, and, even, 
 among scientists to-day, there is often a radical 
 difference of opinion as to how many species should 
 be recognized in a particular genus. The rapid re- 
 sponse of species to a change of environment and 
 the wonderful ‘‘plasticity’’ which they display under 
 such circumstances greatly complicate the problem. 
 
 Now, is it not perfectly clear that on the basis 
 of special creation these intermediate differences 
 among the species of a genus are very difficult of 
 
96 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 explanation? But, on the other hand, the simple 
 evolutionary changes in the individuals of a species 
 in response to environment and as a result of hered- 
 itary variations offer a perfectly plausible and 
 natural solution of the difficulty. 
 
 Shall we still hold to the hypothesis that in the 
 beginning God created all of the distinct species, 
 just as they are now, and that they have never 
 varied and never can? Biologists have already 
 classified about five hundred thousand living kinds 
 of animals and two hundred and fifty thousand liv- 
 ing kinds of plants, and there are many more to 
 classify. Do you not see what a stupendous prob- 
 lem is involved in the theory of special creation? 
 What wide diversity of geographic and climatic 
 conditions must have prevailed in the Garden of 
 Eden! 
 
 EVIDENCE FROM DOMESTICATION 
 
 Whatever may be the verdict concerning this 
 first link in the chain of evidence, let us consider 
 the inferences which may be drawn from the won- 
 derful results obtained in the domestication of 
 animals. We have already pointed out that the 
 various breeds of cattle, horses, sheep and fowls 
 have in each instance descended from some common 
 wild ancestor. Dogs are domesticated wolves 
 and are classed as a single distinct species. And 
 yet, if a zoologist were to find the pointer, terrier 
 and spaniel dogs, for example, living wild in a state 
 of Nature, he would not hesitate to pronounce them 
 as belonging to separate species. If the theory of 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 97 
 
 special creation is correct, how have these modifi- 
 cations from the common wild ancestor come about? 
 There is no escape from the conclusion that they 
 would have been impossible. 
 
 Among domestic pigeons, there are over two hun- 
 dred well-marked breeds, and there is abundant 
 evidence that they all descended from the wild rock- 
 dove. We are all familiar with the plant creations 
 of Luther Burbank, such as the primus berry, the 
 stoneless plum, the spineless cactus, and the Shasta 
 daisy. All of our ordinary varieties of wheat have 
 been developed since the days of the polished stone 
 age from a single ancestor, now found growing on 
 the slopes of Mount Hermon. The romance of the 
 Fife wheat is but a single episode in the progress 
 of evolution in very recent times. 
 
 As additional evidence from the work of domes- 
 tication, let us relate the interesting story of the 
 Porto Santo rabbit. About 1420, a Portuguese navi- 
 gator set free on the island of Porto Santo, not far 
 from Madeira, a doe with a litter of young rabbits. 
 These rabbits belonged to a domestic race which had 
 descended from the European wild rabbit. So rap-. 
 idly did they multiply that within forty years they 
 were described as ‘‘innumerable.’’ And, in the four 
 and a half centuries since, they have changed so 
 completely from their original ancestor that they 
 have been described by Ernest Haeckel, the great 
 biologist of Jena, as a distinct species. 
 
 A host of additional examples might be given, 
 but these are sufficient. Is it not fair to ask if these 
 instances of the modification of species are not very 
 
98 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 substantial evidences of evolution now going on? 
 And if man has been able to accomplish so much 
 within such a comparatively short time, what 
 miracles of evolution may not have been achieved 
 with God throughout the countless eons of the past? 
 
 To the question so often asked: ‘‘ Why has evo- 
 lution ceased???’ we may answer: ‘‘It has not 
 ceased.’’ 
 
 EVIDENCE FROM COMPARATIVE ANATOMY 
 
 Professor Le Conte, in his “Evolution and its 
 Relation to Religious Thought, says: 
 
 “*Tt is impossible to exaggerate the closeness be- 
 tween man’s body and the animal kingdom, from a 
 structural point of view. . . . Man’s body is iden- 
 tified with the body of all animals in its functions, 
 with all vertebrates, especially mammals, in its 
 structure. Bone for bone, muscle for muscle, 
 ganglion for ganglion, almost nerve-fiber for nerve- 
 fiber, his body corresponds with that of the higher 
 animals. Whether he was derived from such ani- 
 mals or not, certain it is that his structure, even in 
 the minutest details, is precisely such as it would be 
 if he were thus derived by. successive slight modi- 
 fications.’’* 
 
 That is what is meant by comparative anatomy. 
 Within the animal kingdom, we find several distinct 
 types of architecture. Each type exhibits within 
 itself an almost endless diversity in the details of 
 structure, and yet there may be clearly perceived 
 one common, fundamental plan. Just as in a musi- 
 cal composition a single theme may be discovered 
 running throughout all of the variations of the pro- 
 
 *By permission of D. Appleton & Company. 
 
"HE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 99 
 
 duction, so does one dominating scheme pervade the 
 structural organization of a particular group of 
 animals. 
 
 Let us illustrate. Strange as it may seem at 
 first thought, a careful examination discloses that 
 the human arm and hand, the flipper of a whale, the 
 wing of a bird, and the fore leg of a lizard are iden- 
 tical in their general plan of construction. Or, we 
 may take the limbs of a turtle, a bear, a monkey, a 
 bat and a mole. Muscle for muscle, bone for bone, 
 in every instance they are essentially the same. 
 The differences which exist are superficial, not 
 fundamental. What is the meaning of the two sets 
 of teeth in the whalebone whales,—teeth which never 
 even cut the gum? Are they not to be regarded as 
 relics of useful teeth which their ancestral forms 
 possessed? 
 
 Now these similarities of structure unmistak- 
 ably point to a common origin, and descent with 
 modification. They indicate blood kinship. But on 
 the basis of special creation, they simply have no 
 meaning. From the popular standpoint, this kind 
 of evidence is not so conclusive as is that from 
 classification and domestication, and yet these facts 
 of comparative anatomy are just exactly what we 
 should expect as a result of evolution. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FROM EMBRYOLOGY 
 
 With the coming of the compound microscope 
 and its application to biological research, it became 
 possible to trace in minute detail every stage in the 
 development of an embryo from the simple one-celled 
 
100 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 egg to the mature individual. And this work has led 
 to the very remarkable discovery that all the verte- 
 brated animals,—fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds 
 and mammals, no matter how varied they may be in 
 their habits of life, are amazingly similar in their 
 embryological development. In a most striking way 
 this discovery indicates the kinship of these various 
 forms. The individual in his development from the 
 egg to the mature state repeats in abbreviated form 
 the history of his ancestral lineage. 
 
 The embryology of man, step for step, is almost 
 precisely like that of the other primates, and partic- 
 ularly like that of the anthropoid apes. Not only 
 this, but many structural features which become 
 permanent characteristics in the lower forms of life 
 appear as transitory stages in the evolution of the 
 human embryo. Thus, the heart is first like that of 
 a fish, then hke that of an amphibian, and only 
 finally develops into the four-chambered form char- 
 acteristic of mammals. More significant still is the 
 appearance, while the evolving veins, arteries and 
 heart are in the fish-like stage, of four pairs of well- 
 marked gill slits. After persisting for some time 
 without serving any useful purpose, they gradually 
 disappear. The nervous system, the alimentary 
 system, the excretory system, and every other sys- 
 tem exhibits a precisely similar evolution. In their 
 early stages of development, these various organs 
 are identical with those of lower forms. Even the 
 microscope will not disclose for some time into what 
 type of animal an embryo will develop. At one 
 stage the human embryo exhibits a well-formed tail, 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 101 
 
 and even in the adult this one-time appendage is 
 preserved in rudimentary form in the fusion of the 
 four or five vertebre forming the ‘‘coccyx.’”? A 
 complete coating of embryonic hair also appears, 
 which passes off long before birth and which does 
 not seem to serve any useful function. Other exam- 
 ples might be cited. The wing of a bird, for in- 
 stance, can not be distinguished, at one stage, from 
 the fore limb of a cat. 
 
 Another line of evidence closely related to the 
 foregoing is that of rudimentary, or ‘‘vestigial’’ 
 structures. Such structures are undeveloped organs 
 which still persist in animal forms, although they 
 have no apparent use whatever. The hind limbs of 
 the whale, the thumb of the bird, and the splint 
 bones of the horse are examples. Man himself is 
 a ‘‘veritable walking museum of antiquities.’’ He 
 is said to possess nearly two hundred such vestigial 
 structures. In the inner upper corner of the eye 
 is a minute tag, which is the last vestige of the third 
 eyelid, occurring in well-developed form in most 
 mammals and serving to clean the front of the eye. 
 Among other human vestiges, may be mentioned the 
 vermiform appendix; a complicated set of muscles 
 similar to those employed by other animals for 
 moving their ears, but having no use in man; the 
 abbreviated tail with its set of caudal muscles; and 
 the embryonic vestigial gill slits. 
 
 What is the explanation? Why do we have so 
 many features in our bodies which are so much like 
 corresponding features in the bodies of other ani- 
 mals? Why do we pass through, in the embryologi- 
 
102 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 cal development of each of us, so many stages that 
 are like stages passed through in the development of 
 other vertebrates? Are we not correct in assuming 
 that in all this the individual recapitulates the an- 
 cestral history? Inheritance, it is thought, accounts 
 for the occurrence of these organs; lack of use pre- 
 vents their development or causes them to dis- 
 appear. In the early stages of the evolution of the 
 individual, these organs did have a use, which 
 heredity stubbornly refuses to forget, and so we 
 find them perpetuated in a functionless rudimentary 
 state. The theory of evolution gives a logical, 
 almost irresistible, explanation to these interesting 
 facts of scientific investigation. 
 
 But what has the hypothesis of special creation 
 to offer? It either is content to deny the facts or 
 blindly shutsits eyes to them. It has no explanation, 
 other than to say that these things simply are so, 
 which is the giving up of explanation. But facts 
 are stubborn things, and they must be accounted for. 
 Evolution is the only answer. 
 
 A simple illustration will serve to make clear the 
 scientific explanation. I have in mind an office 
 building which shows unmistakably that it was at 
 one time a dwelling house. The vestibule and hall, 
 the winding staircase, the archways, the fireplaces, 
 the size and arrangement of the rooms, the windows, 
 and much more all betray its residential character. 
 Are we to assume that the architect who designed 
 this building deliberately introduced features which 
 are appropriate only to another order of architee- 
 ture? The answer and likewise the aptness of the 
 illustration are obvious. 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 103 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FROM BLOOD TESTS 
 
 ‘Blood will tell.’’ Since the time of Darwin, a 
 new type of evidence has brought a wealth of con- 
 firmation to the evolutionary theory of man’s ances- 
 tral lineage. It has come from blood tests and 
 demonstrates the kinship, or lack of it, existing 
 among different animals. Although these blood dif- 
 ferences and similarities have long been known to 
 exist, chemical analysis would not reveal them. 
 Scientists sought a method that would, and at last 
 they found it. 
 
 An ‘‘anti-human’’ serum is prepared by inject- 
 ing the serum from human blood into the veins of a 
 rabbit, After a few days the rabbit is killed and the 
 serum from his blood is found to be a wonderfully 
 delicate test for human blood and also for the vary- 
 ing degrees of relationship existing between human 
 beings and lower types of life. Now, when a little 
 of this prepared serum is mixed with the serum 
 from human blood, a precipitate, that is a solid sub- 
 stance, will at once form. But, if this serum is 
 mixed with that from the blood, for instance, of a 
 domestic animal, such as a pig, a sheep, or a fowl, 
 no reaction occurs. When mixed with the serum 
 from the blood of the anthropoid, or man-like apes, 
 this indicator gives a distinct precipitate, although 
 it is less abundant and somewhat slower in forming. 
 Definite but less abundant reactions are obtained 
 with the blood of both Old-World and New-World 
 monkeys, 
 
 In like manner other serums may be prepared 
 which will detect with a high degree of certainty the 
 
104 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 relationships existing between any desired groups 
 of animals. The result has been to show an unmis- 
 takable kinship among all mammals, for instance, 
 and to confirm in a most striking way, wherever 
 these tests have been applied, the conclusions with 
 regard to the truth of evolution drawn from other 
 sources of evidence. 
 
 Such discoveries as these are of immense signifi- 
 eance. Only he who does not wish to believe can 
 doubt their import. In them we have unmistakable 
 proof of our lowly origin. Whether such proof is 
 pleasing or displeasing, we must accept it. 
 
 EVIDENCE FROM PALEONTOLOGY 
 
 Paleontology is the fascinating science of ancient 
 life. We have seen how the fossil record of these 
 extinct forms laid the foundation for the theory of 
 evolution. But long before this theory had come to 
 the fore, geologists through a study of fossils had 
 divided the past history of our earth into a series of 
 eras, periods and epochs. In the oldest rocks occur 
 the simple forms of invertebrate life. The Paleo- 
 zoic seas of that unimaginably remote time are 
 shown to have been swarming with a great profusion 
 of living things, simple and primitive in structure. 
 Some of them, as the mollusks, brachiopods, and 
 sea-lilies, belonged to types still living. Trilobites, 
 a sub-class of crustaceans, are wholly extinct. 
 Spiders and scorpions, and insects, such as cock- 
 roaches and dragon-flies, abounded. Thousands of 
 extinct species of fossil forms have been discovered 
 and described, But even before this era we know 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 105 
 
 that there was the primordial life of the inconceiv- 
 ably long Archsozoic era of which we have no 
 record. a 
 
 In the early rocks of the Paleozoic era we find 
 the first fishes, followed, as we pass upward, by 
 amphibians and finally toward the close of the era 
 by the rise of reptiles. The appearance of amphib- 
 ians shows that life was emerging from the seas and 
 invading the land. These animals, too, represented 
 a distinct advance in structure, and with them came 
 the first sound upon this planet of an animal voice. 
 The reptiles, one hundred per cent. land animals, not 
 breathing by gills in any stage of their development 
 and wholly free from water, represented a still 
 greater advance in structure over their humble pre- 
 decessors. The prolonged ice age which marked the 
 close of this era caused the complete extinction of 
 many ancient types. 
 
 The succeeding Mesozoic era has often been 
 termed the ‘‘Golden Age’’ of reptiles. These huge, 
 hideous-looking monsters radiated in many direc- 
 tions and adapted themselves to many haunts. 
 Fish-lizards, swiftly gliding alligator-like types, 
 and flying dragons abounded in great variety. The 
 first known bird, the Archeopteryx, has been 
 found in Bavaria in rocks belonging to this era. 
 With the exception of the breast bone, every bone 
 in the body was found, and the rocks even preserved 
 the impress of the feathers. Flying reptiles, known 
 as pterodactyls but not true birds, were a feature 
 of this far-off time. Some of the later reptiles of 
 this era began to exhibit the characteristics of mam- 
 
106 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 mals, and before its close this next higher class of 
 animals was well established. 
 
 In the Cenozoic, or recent era, the mammals 
 came into their own. Like the reptiles before them, 
 they conquered every haunt of life. Many types, — 
 such as the woolly rhinoceros, the mammoth, the 
 saber-toothed tiger, the cave-lion, and the cave-bear 
 have become extinct. A constantly ascending scale 
 of intelligence is seen in the development of mam- 
 malian life throughout the era, particularly in the 
 monkey-ape-man, and finally in the inter-glacial 
 epochs brute man himself appeared. Gradually both 
 animal and plant life assumed its modern aspect and 
 man through long centuries won his mastery of the 
 earth. 
 
 In a number of instances complete fossil pedi- 
 grees, connecting present types of animals with their 
 extinct ancestral forms, have been discovered. This 
 is true of the horse, the elephant, the camel and the 
 rhinoceros. From Hohippus, the first horse-like an- 
 cestor, measuring only eleven inches high and found 
 in deposits belonging to the grass-covered Ameri- 
 ean plains of early Cenozoic time, there exists a 
 complete series of intermediate fossil forms. A 
 wonderful exhibit, showing this historical develop- 
 ment, is to be seen in the American Museum of Nat- 
 ural History in New York. An interesting incident 
 connected with the development of this history oc- 
 curred when Huxley, on a visit to this country, was 
 lecturing in New York. He traced the ancestry of 
 the horse, as 1t was known at that time, and pre- 
 dicted that; if the next fossil form in order were ever 
 

 
 Courtesy The American Museum of Natural History. 
 
 EVOLUTION OF THE FORE FOOT OF THE HORSE 
 
 Fossil remains of the horse go back for three million years. Start- 
 
 ing with a four-toed animal no bigger than a cat, a perfect series 
 
 of the most notable geological discoveries ever made portray his 
 
 evolution to the modern horse, each of whose hoofs has developed 
 from a single toe of the original ancestor. 
 

 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 107 
 
 discovered, it would have certain characteristics, 
 describing what sort of an animal it must be. With- 
 in six months after Huxley’s return to HKurope, 
 Professor Marsh of Yale discovered this animal’s 
 remains in Colorado, and they matched exactly the 
 description which the distinguished scientist had 
 given of them. Does it not seem true that a theory 
 which is able to make such verifiable predictions has 
 something more back of it than mere chance? Does 
 it not show the presence of God in Nature? Can we 
 not see in this modern prophecy and its fulfilment 
 the revelation of a divine law? 
 
 Putting aside all previous ideas, assuming that 
 you had never heard the Story of Creation,—what 
 interpretation would you place upon these facts of 
 the geologic record? What would these succeeding 
 cycles of constantly progressing life forms mean to 
 you? Could you give any other explanation than 
 ‘creative evolution’’ directed by Intelligent Pur- 
 pose? The Bible story does not contain this 
 geologic record for the simple reason that it was 
 not known at the time the Bible was written. Even 
 assuming that God actually dictated the Bible ac- 
 count, of what use would it have been to give scien- 
 tific facts of this sort to primitive folk? They 
 would not have understood them. The Story of 
 Creation was the only explanation which those 
 simple-minded people could understand, but we are 
 not bound to retain it in the light of the contradic- 
 tory scientific revelations of the twentieth century. 
 
 And why try to teach our young people in their 
 religious training a theory of the origin of life which 
 
108 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 is so completely discredited by a wealth of evidence 
 obtained from their science studies? Does, not, too, 
 the experience of the past demonstrate the utter 
 futility of attempting, either by ecclesiastical or 
 legislative decree, to prevent the teaching of the 
 truth? No one has ever been able long to suppress 
 it. It is as irrepressible as the slumbering fires of 
 Vesuvius. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FROM GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 
 
 We have already seen that it was the geograph- 
 ical distribution of extinct and living forms of 
 animal and plant life in South America and on the 
 Galapagos Islands that led Darwin to the adoption 
 of the theory of evolution. There is an abundance 
 of other examples of similar evidence. The life on 
 the island of Madagascar, at one time connected 
 with the African mainland, is very markedly dif- 
 ferent from that of the parent continent. During 
 the long period of separation, species which were 
 originally identical, have evolved into new forms. 
 There is no escape from this conclusion. On the 
 other hand the British Isles have so recently sep- 
 arated from the continent of Hurope that new spe- 
 cies have not had time to develop. 
 
 It is an interesting fact that on oceanic islands 
 far-removed from continents only those forms ‘of 
 life are found which could be borne to them by wind 
 and wave. Only such birds as can be carried long 
 distances by strong gales appear. The fauna of 
 such islands contain no mammals except bats. And 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 109 
 
 in every instance the life, both plant and animal, is 
 similar to that of the nearest mainland, yet differs 
 from it in having distinct species. If special crea- 
 tion accounts for these forms, why are they not 
 identical with those of the mainland? There is no 
 answer. But evolution affords a simple and in- 
 evitable explanation. And if we admit that the 
 original forms of life came from the mainland and 
 have since changed into new species, then the case 
 of evolution is established. 
 
 That islands do receive life in this way is proved 
 by the case of the island of Krakatoa. In 1883, half 
 of it was blown away and the other half was buried 
 in voleanic dust so deep that every living form per- 
 ished. But in a surprisingly short space of time 
 the island was revegetated, and repopulated with a 
 great variety of insect life, all borne from the 
 islands of Java and Sumatra. 
 
 On the mainland, animals have been known to 
 spread for great distances from their original hab- 
 itats, and groups have frequently become isolated. 
 As a result, after long periods of time new species 
 have arisen. As an instance of this rapid migra- 
 tion, we may mention the case of the horses set free 
 about 1537 from Buenos Aires, upon the abandon- 
 ment of the first settlement at that place. In forty- 
 three years, it is said, they had spread to the Straits 
 of Magellan, nearly a thousand miles distant. 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 You have heard the evidence. What is your 
 verdict? Remembering that only two explana- 
 
110 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 tions—special creation and evolution—have ever 
 been advanced, which more nearly fits the facts? 
 Should we longer fetter our minds with an outworn 
 legendary belief which was never intended to be 
 regarded as literal scientific truth? Must we not 
 accept things as they are and cease distorting the 
 facts to suit some dogmatic theological view? Sen- 
 timent and prejudice are unsafe guides in answering 
 such questions. Only our God-given reason, which 
 elevates us above the beast, can give the answer. 
 And we must remember that our decision has noth- 
 ing to do with the theories advanced to explain the 
 process. It is concerned only with the fact of evo- 
 lution itself. Has there been a divine process of 
 ceaseless change ‘‘through ever enlarging cycles 
 and higher levels,’? or do you wish to believe that 
 the whole universe, including all forms of life as 
 they exist to-day, were miraculously created in a 
 few brief days of very recent time? And let it be 
 pointed out that the idea of special creation is an 
 hypothesis without a single fact to support it. Un- 
 deniably a legend, whose purpose was to teach the 
 fundamental spiritual truth of an omnipotent Cre- 
 ator, it is an astounding circumstance that in this 
 enlightened century of marvelous scientific achieve- 
 ment, this incredible belief should still grip the 
 minds of men. Is not a purpose moving faithfully 
 and steadily across the ages immeasurably more 
 impressive than one which is realized in a day? 
 Does it not enable men better to appreciate the vast- 
 ness of creation and inspire them to a life of 
 reverence in the presence of the Infinite? After all 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 111 
 
 it is not a question as to which belief we prefer, but 
 which belief squares itself with the known facts of 
 the universe. There is not a shred of evidence to 
 support the story of special creation, but a bewil- 
 dering array of the most authentic observations 
 known to science proclaims the universal truth of 
 evolution. We do not hesitate to accept at face 
 value the latest discoveries of scientists with regard 
 to atoms, molecules and electrons,—radio, medical 
 research and astronomical mysteries. Why should 
 we refuse to believe the equally valid discoveries 
 concerning the past history of our planet and its 
 life? 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 
 
 Before me lie the tiny seeds of a common garden 
 flower. So small that they are almost indistinguish- 
 able from one another with the eye, each of these 
 little seeds contains a germ-eell, from which will 
 spring a new plant, faithfully repeating in a thou- 
 sand minute details the form and structure of the 
 parent plant. And I know that the plant will pro- 
 duce a flower true to the ancestral type, yielding 
 a host of tiny seeds, each one again endowed with 
 the same marvelous potencies. How does it come 
 about? Why do the violet and the buttercup, each, 
 select from the same food source just exactly the 
 elements needed for its peculiar growth and build 
 them in accordance with its own unique pattern of 
 beauty? What is this creative urge which enables 
 the green chlorophyll of a living leaf together with 
 sunlight to change carbon dioxide and water into 
 plant cells, while in a dead leaf this transformation 
 
112 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 is an impossibility? What is the source of this life 
 which animates all Nature? Why this succession of 
 seed-time and harvest throughout the centuries? 
 Why does the ‘‘advancing year ever bring the rose 
 of spring’’? What divine force is enshrined within 
 that ‘‘treasure-house of all the ages,’’ the living 
 cell from which evolves a human being,—endowed 
 mayhap with genius.and always with the God-con- 
 scious soul of man? In these questionings of the 
 Eternal, we are face to face with the unsearchable 
 mystery of life. To answer them, we should need 
 to know what God is. 
 
 From whence came those first simple forms of 
 life upon our planet, millions and millions of years 
 ago,—forms bearing within themselves the creative 
 impress of evolving life? Evolution has pushed 
 this problem back to the very frontiers of creation, 
 but still our thought is not content to rest. Life 
 surely had a beginning, in lowly forms, in some 
 immeasurably distant time. How did it originate? 
 Some have held with Lord Kelvin, Helmholtz and 
 Arrhenius that life may possibly have come to this 
 planet from the depths of space, wrapped in the 
 crevices of meteoric matter. But even were this 
 true, it only shifts the burden of creation to some 
 other spot of the universe. Others have suggested 
 that in that far-away early period of youthful ex- 
 uberance conditions may have been such that living 
 things spontaneously evolved from non-living mat- 
 ter by a natural process of synthesis. Recent 
 experiments by Professor Baly have shown that 
 an organic compound known as formaldehyde can 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 113 
 
 be produced by the prolonged action of sunlight on 
 water and carbon dioxide. But we are confronted 
 with a vastly more difficult problem. It is a living 
 organism capable of reproduction and endowed 
 with the creative capacity to evolve into constantly 
 higher and higher forms of life for which we must 
 account. 
 
 Still there can be no doubt that when, in the 
 course of that infinitely slow evolution from nebula 
 to planet, conditions suitable for the support of life 
 arose, living things appeared as simply and as nat- 
 urally as in the springtime ‘‘the cowslip startles in 
 meadows green.’’ This emergence of life was but 
 an incident in the unfolding of that divine plan 
 which from the very beginning has held within the 
 scope of its Infinite Purpose electrons and nebula, 
 stars and solar systems, cities and civilizations. 
 And when we have carried life back to Him who 
 is the one overshadowing fact of all creation, we can 
 go no further. The rational mind can accept no less 
 than Divine Intelligence as the ultimate source of an 
 intelligible world, and of anything above and beyond 
 that we can form no conception. 
 
 EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIAN FAITH 
 
 Evolution exalts the Christian faith. For the 
 crude notion of a Master Artificer, it substitutes the 
 Divine Immanence of all creation. It has trans- 
 formed the primitive idea of God into one commen- 
 surate with the illimitable universe which science 
 has revealed to the minds of men. This notion of 
 immeasurable eras of time, of ceaseless growth, of 
 
114 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 infinite resources has inspired many men with some- 
 thing of the feeling of Immanuel Kant when he 
 said, ‘‘Two things fill me with unspeakable awe,— 
 the starry heavens above and the moral law within.’’ 
 Concerning the relation of science to Christian 
 faith, the words of three of the foremost Christian 
 prophets of modern times will be helpful. Let me 
 quote from a letter recently received from Doctor 
 Charles EX. Jefferson, pastor of the Broadway 
 Tabernacle in New York City. He says: 
 
 ‘‘In response to your request, let me say that 
 Im my opinion there is no real conflict between 
 science and religion. Whatever apparent conflict 
 there may have been, has been due to the shortsight- 
 edness and bad temper of a few representatives of 
 both sides. Neither side is guiltless. Both sides 
 have been bigoted and bumptious. Each side has 
 rushed into the territory of the other and set up 
 claims which could not be maintained. Such unfor- 
 tunate exhibitions of bad manners are happily grow- 
 ing less and will some day, let us hope, pass entirely 
 away. A Christian need have no fear of science. 
 He is a professed follower of the truth, and to him 
 truth ought to be dearer than all things else. It is 
 the business of science to seek facts. The Christian 
 is glad to accept them just as rapidly as they are 
 found. The scientist is fearless in his search for the 
 truth, and so is the consistent Christian. If loyal 
 to Christ he has the scientific spirit. He is ever 
 pressing on knowing that he has not attained. He 
 longs to know more and more. He expects to be 
 able to do greater and greater things. He tests all 
 ideas and hypotheses, and holds fast to that which 
 is good. If newly discovered truth conflicts with 
 the Bible, or with the Creed, then the interpretation 
 of the Bible and the Creed must be widened to make 
 room for the new facts. Facts are words of the 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 115 
 
 Lord, and in these facts we get a fresh revelation of 
 the mind and purpose of the Eternal. The Chris- 
 tian Church, therefore, has nothing to fear from 
 scientific investigations. Christian leaders are in 
 no alarm over the progress of scientific research, 
 They are immensely indebted to science for her 
 amazing revelations, and have been profoundly 
 stimulated by the progressive unveiling of the ma- 
 terial universe. The ultimate outcome of the whole 
 scientific movement of the last hundred years will 
 be a strengthening of the fundamental doctrines of 
 the Christian religion, and a powerful aid to faith 
 and hope and love.’’ 
 
 Doctor S. Parkes Cadman, pastor of the Central 
 Congregational Church of Brooklyn and a preacher 
 of international renown, in reply to my request for 
 a statement upon this subject, referred me to his 
 book Ambassadors of God, from which I quote the 
 following passage: 
 
 ‘‘Of all the theories science has put forth that 
 of evolution was the most capable of being recon- 
 ciled with Revelation. You believe, I venture to 
 assume, that the Christian Faith is bound to take 
 unto itself the verified wonders of creation, which 
 are resonant with the goodness and wisdom of 
 Deity; that the cosmos must be intelligible to man- 
 kind; and that whatever makes life more rational 
 and therefore more truly divine should be a part 
 of the praise which the Church offers to her Lord. 
 Why then was not the idea of progressive develop- 
 ment ‘baptized into Christ’? The assertion that the 
 several endowments of sentient existence, orig- 
 inally breathed into one or more primordial sub- 
 stances, were ceaselessly urged onward toward 
 higher existence had nothing in it essentially op- 
 posed to Christian truth. Renewal, growth, fer- 
 tility, contingent perfectibility; what are these but 
 
116 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 spiritual terms imported into the natural world?— 
 terms with which the New Testament abounds at 
 every turn. Here, as it impresses me, was a unique 
 opening for the attachment of the hypothesis of 
 progressive development to the highest interests of 
 the race. Its conscious possession and use in the 
 Church were indefinitely postponed by the explicable 
 but costly reaction of theologians and preachers 
 who refused to harmonize the facts of science with 
 the realities of faith.?’* 
 
 In another passage, Doctor Cadman speaks of 
 the ‘‘vain attempts to transmute the poetical com- 
 positions of Genesis into actual events.”’ 
 
 The late Doctor Lyman Abbott, in reply to a 
 parent’s question asking ‘‘how the theory of evo- 
 lution can be reconciled to the Biblical account of 
 creation in teaching young children,’’ said: 
 
 ‘<T answer, by teaching them the nature and uses 
 of the Bible. 
 
 ‘*A child grows up in the home and imbibes the 
 impression that the Bible is an infallible authority 
 upon all subjects. His religious teaching in Church 
 and the Sunday-school is fragmentary; no attempt 
 is made to give him any systematic religious instruc- 
 tion. He therefore systematizes it for himself. The 
 result is something like this: 
 
 ‘‘Six thousand years ago God made the world. 
 He made it in six days and launched it on its voy- 
 age. Since that time He has done nothing more to 
 it except occasionally to interfere with its natural 
 operation, as in the Deluge, the destruction of 
 Sodom and Gomorrah, and the crossing of the Red 
 Sea. But that sort of thing He does not do any 
 more. He made man perfect, as he made every- 
 thing else perfect. But the first man disobeyed 
 
 *The Macmillan Company, 1920. 
 
THE MBANING OF EVOLUTION 117 
 
 God, and all the disease and sin and misery in the 
 world has resulted from that disobedience. 
 
 ‘“‘This child goes to school carrying some such 
 idea as this with him. And before he gets through 
 the high school he finds all secular teaching set on a 
 different key. Life is progressive. Creation is 
 continuous. As the tree grows by a progressive 
 process from a seed, so the world has grown by a 
 progressive process from chaos. As the man grows 
 by a progressive process from the babe, so the race 
 has grown by a progressive process from a pre- 
 historic cradle. The child’s religious impression has 
 been that life is static, with occasional divine inter- 
 ventions. His entire system of school education is 
 founded on the assumption that life is a continuous 
 progress, ‘There is no one to tell him that ‘evo- 
 lution is God’s way of doing things.’ And it will 
 not be strange if he rejects the Bible which has 
 never been interpreted to him, the Church which 
 has never interpreted itself to him, and religion 
 which he has come to regard as a bar, not an in- 
 spiration, to progress,’”* 
 
 Similar statements might be obtained from many 
 other of the world’s foremost Christian leaders, 
 Doctor Hillis has already been quoted. Enlightened 
 Christian leadership everywhere recognizes the 
 transcendent truth of evolution and welcomes this 
 new conception of divine revelation. In place of the 
 absentee God of the older Church thinking, a God 
 who set the world going and then went off and left 
 it except for an occasional miraculous interference 
 with its orderly operation, evolution puts the God 
 of here and now, always creating, always speaking, 
 always revealing Himself, and in each succeeding 
 age more fully and more clearly. It dispels the 
 
 *The Outlook, volume 130, page 290. 
 
118 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 false idea that revelation ceased at the close of the 
 Old and New Testament days. 
 
 Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
 We hear life murmur, or see it glisten. 
 
 And life itself is a revelation of God. He is for- 
 ever revealing Himself in all Nature, in every golden 
 sunrise and gorgeous sunset, in each new spring- 
 time with its wonderful renaissance of life, in the 
 ripening harvest, in the glory of the heavens, in 
 the beauty and the terror of the sea, in the per- 
 petual flux of all creation, in the miracles of science, 
 and in the ebb and flow of civilizations. This 
 Divine Immanence is in us and all about us. It is 
 the source of inspiration for every sermon and 
 every poem, every painting and every work of 
 sculpture; it is the soul of music and the guide of 
 genius; it makes the inventor and the discoverer co- 
 workers with the Infinite; it manifested itself in the 
 prophets of old, and to-day it lives again in every 
 scientist and searcher after truth. Evolution has 
 brought God immeasurably nearer to the souls of 
 men. 
 
 Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with 
 Spirit can meet— 
 
 Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands 
 and feet. 
 
 In the words of Whittier, 
 
 I know not where His islands lift 
 Their fronded palms in air; 
 
 I only know I eannot drift 
 Beyond His love and care. 
 
THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 119 
 
 Creation and, therefore, the Divine Immanence, 
 which we call God, is everywhere. Both animate 
 and inanimate Nature ceaselessly breathe of His 
 presence. 
 
 Fortunately, the spiritual progress of the race 
 does not depend upon the acceptance or the rejec- 
 tion either of evolution or special creation. Crea- 
 tion is the outstanding fact of the universe and 
 exists independently of any human explanation. 
 Proceeding out of the countless eons of the past and 
 moving forward into all eternity, this ceaseless be- 
 coming embraces in the vast sweep of its infinite 
 purpose every phase of human progress, both ma- 
 terial and spiritual. For a few fleeting moments of 
 cosmic time, the human race emerged but yesterday 
 from its shadowy past, participates in this tri- 
 umphal pageant of the ages. Whither it will lead 
 no one can say. In the following beautiful lines, the 
 poet Holmes has hinted at the possible significance 
 of it all for the soul of man: 
 
 Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 
 
 As the swift seasons roll! 
 
 Leave thy low-vaulted past! 
 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 
 Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea! 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 Tue Rise or Man 
 
 Yes, man has risen,—not fallen. That is the 
 message of science and the gospel of the newer re- 
 ligious thinking. Taking his origin from a lowly 
 ancestry, possibly a million years ago, brute man 
 at length began to feel within his slumbering soul 
 the first dawning consciousness of those God-given 
 powers which were gradually throughout uncounted 
 centuries to transform him from a creature of cir- 
 cumstances into the master of the earth. Beast-like 
 in appearance, of savage impulses, thick-skulled and 
 small-brained, cunning, skilful, vastly superior in 
 latent native ability to his associates of forest and 
 plain,—this uncouth progenitor of humankind, into 
 whom God had breathed the faculty of reason, 
 somewhere, sometime, began that inconceivably slow 
 climb which was to bring him finally to the dawn of 
 civilization and to the acquisition of homes and flocks 
 and inventions and arts and laws and liberties and 
 religions. Reveling in the easy times and genial 
 warmth of periods of mild climate, suffering the 
 most terrible hardships from the Arctic cold of sue- 
 ceeding Ice Ages, frequently perishing in vast 
 numbers from famine and pestilence, plunged in the 
 deepest ignorance, addicted to hideous acts of crime 
 
 at cl OOM ae Yu 
 
THE RISE OF MAN Peal 
 
 and passion, subject to superstition and delusion,— 
 these prehistoric kin of ours lived and died and, 
 with an ever-growing faith in their divine destiny, 
 carried forward the torch of progress until it now 
 lights the world. That, in brief outline, is the rec- 
 ord which the facts of science make it possible to 
 substitute for the soul-blighting legend of the ‘‘ Fall 
 of Man.’’? Ascent, not descent,—soul-expansion, 
 glorious achievement, on the whole steady progress, 
 the promise of illimitable future possibilities,— 
 these are what we see when we silhouette the 
 pageant of human evolution against the background 
 of the ages. Forward and upward has been the 
 general trend of the race,—not created in innocency, 
 only to fall through the original sin of the initial 
 pair, entailing untold woes upon all succeeding gen- 
 erations. In place of that unnatural picture, the 
 undoubted evidence of man’s lowly origin has 
 painted for us the most noble spectacle of divine 
 progress to be found anywhere in the slow unfold- 
 ing throughout the ages of the Eternal Purpose 
 back of all creation. 
 
 That this earth had been the abiding-place of 
 man for unnumbered millenniums before the earliest 
 date of recorded history is the verdict both of 
 science and archeology. The date of Menes, the first 
 of the Egyptian kings whose names are inscribed on 
 the monuments of the Nile Valley, is placed by the 
 most eminent authorities at from 3180 B. C. to 5004 
 B.C. And even then civilization was old. A vast 
 antiquity of progressive change had preceded the 
 first dynasties. Sculptured upon those early mouu- 
 
122 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 ments are types of the Egyptian, Israelitish, Negro 
 and Libyan races, as clearly marked as are these 
 types to-day. Such racial characteristics were not 
 acquired in a decade or a century. They point to 
 immense periods of previous evolution. The social 
 conditions of that early time, as revealed in the 
 sculptured and painted scenes preserved in the 
 tombs, tell us that at the very dawn of recorded 
 history a highly complex system of priestly, mili- 
 tary and industrial classes, requiring long centuries 
 for its development, had arisen. The art of engi- 
 neering had reached a high state of perfection. The 
 dikes and canals of these creative pioneers have 
 been the admiration of all succeeding peoples. And 
 what monuments of architecture that early civiliza- 
 tion has left to us! The mighty pyramids, dating 
 from an early period of Egyptian history, the 
 colossal temples of polished granite, noble in design 
 and beautiful in their ornamentation, and the great 
 public edifices, worthy of the highest civilizations 
 of later times, are eloquent memorials to a genius 
 for stately and artistic construction unsurpassed by 
 any other people. At the time of the oldest dynas- 
 ties Egyptian sculpture was far advanced, indicat- 
 ing a previous apprenticeship of great duration. 
 Glass-making, dyeing, the preparation of soap, 
 medicines, oils and perfumes, and the metallurgy of 
 the simple ores had become highly perfected arts. 
 Medicine was becoming a science. The language of 
 these versatile people, in its chief essentials, had 
 reached the highest point of development, and at the 
 time of the most ancient monuments they were in the 
 
THE RISE OF MAN isvahs 
 
 possession of writing. This imaginative race, too, 
 had found time to look up at the stars. Six thou- 
 sand years ago there were men among them with 
 some knowledge of astronomy. The sides of the 
 Great Pyramid are adjusted to the cardinal points 
 of the compass with the utmost accuracy. The 
 Kgyptian year took its date from the summer 
 solstice. Customs and laws and the religion of the 
 land were even then deeply rooted in a multitude 
 of prehistoric practises. 
 
 Can any one doubt that a vast period had inter- 
 vened between the emergence of this people from a 
 state of barbarism, somewhere, sometime in the 
 shadowy past, and the attainment of the high degree 
 of culture which we find when the curtain rises on 
 the early civilization of the Nile Valley? For no 
 people ever produced a civilization without an 1m- 
 mense background of prehistoric struggle. We may 
 be perfectly sure that, slowly and painfully, their 
 ancestors passed through the Rough and Polished 
 Stone Ages and the Age of Metals. Borings sunk 
 through the slowly accumulating deposits of the 
 Nile Valley have brought up from great depths rude 
 pottery and other evidences of the handiwork of 
 primitive men. These mark the lower levels at suc- 
 cessively remote periods in the development of 
 Egyptian art. And stretching away before the 
 lowermost level is the long, long trail followed by 
 the ‘‘tentative men’’ in their evolution from the 
 brute state to the first faint glimmer of an awaken- 
 - ing consciousness of creative ability. Hxamples of 
 other early civilizations might be given. 
 
124 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 No, the race is not young. Just as more than 
 nine-tenths of an iceberg is submerged beneath the 
 surface of the sea, so is the vastly greater portion 
 of our history lost in the gray mists of an unknown 
 antiquity. An appreciation of these facts discloses 
 the wholly unreliable character of the sacred chro- 
 nology, as indicated in the legends of Genesis, and 
 emphasizes even more strongly the transcendent 
 truth of their spiritual teaching. Utterly false, 
 however, in the primitive idea of man’s fall, the 
 Hebrew teaching on this point stands corrected by 
 the findings of science and the revelations of early 
 civilizations. 
 
 OTHER EVIDENCES OF MAN’S ANTIQUITY 
 
 Suppose you were to find in the caves and 
 geological deposits of a certain region chipped 
 flints, implements of man’s skill, human relics, and 
 the evidences of primitive methods of making fire, 
 together with human bones, all lying side by side 
 with the bones of the reindeer, the hairy mammoth, 
 the cave bear and the woolly rhinoceros,—animals 
 belonging to species long since extinct and native 
 only to regions of Arctic cold,—what would be your 
 conclusion? Possibly an arrow-head, as has often 
 been found, still pierces a bone of its extinct victim. 
 And then again, if in this same region but in other 
 deposits you should discover human remains inter- 
 mingled with bones of the hyena, the hippopotamus, 
 the saber-toothed tiger and similar animals,—some 
 of which are now entirely extinct and all charac- 
 teristic of tropic climates,—how would you explain 
 
THE RISE OF MAN 125 
 
 these occurrences? If the world’s foremost geolo- 
 gists, too, should tell you that these deposits were 
 unquestionably many thousands of years old, what 
 would you have a right to infer concerning the age 
 of man and the previous geological history of that 
 particular portion of the earth? 
 
 Now those are just exactly the discoveries which 
 have been made in the British Isles. Is it difficult 
 to picture what must have happened in those 
 islands? Scientists tell us that in Europe and 
 North America there have been four great Ice Ages, 
 with intervening periods of mild or tropic climate. 
 And the geological evidence shows that the men of 
 the Rough Stone Age were involved in those great 
 epochs of glaciation. In one of them, primitive meri 
 must have hunted those animals of Arctic climes 
 and, dying, left their own bones side by side with 
 those of the beasts which supplied them with food. 
 And then when the ice sheet receded and sunny 
 skies and mild climates brought thither, over the 
 land connection which at that time joined England 
 to the continent, the animals from tropic regions, 
 other men hunted these new beasts of prey, and un- 
 wittingly left to us the record of their deeds. 
 
 When we know that man lived upon this earth 
 with animals long since extinct and at a time when 
 the configurations of the continents were vastly 
 different from what they are now and furthermore 
 that he survived throughout long periods of great 
 climatic changes, can we longer cling to the literal 
 truth of the legendary story which places the crea- 
 tion of the earth and all therein, just as they exist 
 
126 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 to-day, at the very recent date of 4004 B. C.? Can 
 we not retain the overshadowing spiritual signifi- 
 cance of that great story and still concede the un- 
 doubted truth of man’s vast antiquity and his hum- 
 ble origin? Must our Christian faith be bound up 
 with the fate of a totally discredited theory of crea- 
 tion? And does not this slow climbing upward 
 through the ages give an added grandeur and dig- 
 nity to the present state of man? Is there not 
 something divinely majestic, too, in this conception 
 of a Supreme Being who has controlled and directed 
 the destinies of men from worse than savagery to 
 civilization? Again let it be said that it is not a 
 question of what we prefer to believe, but of what 
 the facts dictate that we shall believe. 
 
 MAN’S ANCESTRY 
 
 We are already familiar with much of the evi- 
 dence which links man’s ancestry with lower forms 
 of life,—the embryological development, the vesti- 
 gial structures, the blood tests, and the evidence from 
 comparative anatomy. Bone for bone, muscle for 
 muscle, nerve for nerve, and in many other details of 
 structure, man and the man-like apes are extremely 
 similar. Man is much more closely related in his 
 anatomy to the apes than the apes are to the mon- 
 keys. If man is a being distinct in his origin from 
 all other forms of life, why this striking similarity? 
 If we concede the relationship existing between the 
 lower forms of animal life, why deny the validity 
 of the unmistakable evidence of man’s place in the 
 
THE RISE OF MAN 137 
 
 plan of evolution? In the closing words of his great 
 book on The Descent of Man, Darwin says, 
 
 ‘‘We must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that 
 man, with all his noble qualities, with sympathy 
 which feels for the most debased, with benevolence 
 which extends not only to other men but to the hum- 
 blest living creature, with his godlike intelligence 
 which has penetrated into the movements and con- 
 stitution of the solar system—with all these exalted 
 powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the 
 indelible stamp of his lowly origin.’’ 
 
 " And this has ever since been the verdict of the 
 great majority of those who have acquainted them- 
 selves with the evidence. 
 
 If we attempt to classify man according to his 
 anatomical structure and other animal character- 
 istics, we find that he is a vertebrate, belonging to 
 the class of Mammals, to the order of Primates, to 
 the family of Hominide, to the genus Homo, and to 
 the species Homo sapiens. As we shall see, the re- 
 mains have been found of prehistoric men belonging 
 to other genera and to other species, all of which 
 are now extinct. 
 
 If it should seem to some, as we proceed, that 
 the actual remains of the earliest types of human 
 beings are somewhat meager, let it be remembered 
 that in that far-distant time no provision was made 
 for the preservation of the dead. They did not often 
 die in swamps or in places where their forms would 
 be eovered with sediments. Primitive man’s last 
 resting-place was usually in the open air at the sur- 
 face of the ground, where his bones were picked by 
 beasts of prey and his skeleton, weathered by rain 
 
128 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 and frost and dissolved by running water, soon dis- 
 integrated and returned to dust. Only occasionally 
 did some human form become buried in mud or 
 gravel, and, thus protected, preserve to us the 
 certain evidence of his early life. Not until 
 comparatively recent times did men bury their dead 
 in caves, which have kept their skeletons and the 
 secrets of their lives. down to the present day. But 
 roughly chipped flints and stones, crude implements 
 called ‘‘Koliths,’’ have been found in deposits which 
 geologists tell us preceded the First Glacial Age. 
 And we must concede that remains of man’s craft- 
 manship are as certain proof of his early existence 
 as would be the discovery of his human framework. 
 We know, too, that man inhabited this earth for 
 thousands and thousands of years before the dawn- 
 ing consciousness of his creative ability told him that 
 he might adapt his hand to the shaping of simple 
 tools designed to assist him in the struggle for ex- 
 istence. The finding of the fossil remains of even 
 one primitive type of man in rock strata whose 
 geological age is known to be at least a half mil- 
 hon years shows beyond the possibility of doubt 
 that men, though they were sub-men, inhabited the 
 earth at that time. For, if one such being existed 
 then, certain it is that there were many more like 
 him. 
 
 Before we go further, let us make it clear that 
 man has descended neither from a monkey nor an 
 ape. That is not the teaching of science. Certain it 
 is that he is related to both. All are members of 
 families belonging to the Order of Primates, and 
 
THE RISE OF MAN 129 
 
 all are beyond question descended from a common 
 ancestry. But whereas the lines of descent of the 
 monkeys and the apes have kept these types in a 
 very primitive state of evolution, the God-given 
 faculties of reason and an ever-expanding intelli- 
 gence implanted in the soul of man have granted to 
 him the supremacy of the earth and the hope of 
 immortality. 
 
 The Order of Primates emerged upon the earth 
 way back at the beginning of the modern period of 
 geologic time, just as grass was clothing the naked- 
 ness of plain and valley with a garment of green. 
 The rock record shows that their primitive home 
 was in the north in both hemispheres, from whence 
 they migrated southward to Malay, India, Africa 
 and South America. The anthropoid, or manlike, 
 Primates are divided into four families: the mar- 
 mosets, the New-World monkeys, the anthropoid 
 apes and men. Scientists now believe that the 
 common ancestor from which these families sprang 
 was that of the lowest of the mammalian orders, the 
 Insectivora. Of the family of men, the geologic rec- 
 ord shows that there has been a number of genera, 
 and quite possibly there are others which have not 
 yet been discovered, for as yet comparatively little 
 of the earth’s surface has been systematically 
 searched for early types. We of to-day belong to 
 the genus Homo and to the species sapiens, the only 
 living species, although a number of extinct species 
 has been discovered. 
 
 Let us now proceed to a description of the re- 
 mains of early types of men actually found upon 
 
130 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 the earth and trace the record, incomplete and 
 broken though it may be, down to the present 
 aristocracy of all creation. In so doing, we should 
 keep in mind that at some point of the inconceivably 
 remote past, millions of years ago, the four families 
 of the order to which man belongs branched off 
 from the parent stock, each giving rise across vast 
 periods of time to distinct genera and species, most 
 of which are now extinct. Just what were the 
 various conditions of environment and innate tend- 
 encies which, in the struggle for existence, should 
 have given rise to such markedly different products 
 of evolution, no one can say. To know what these 
 were, we should need to understand the divine plan 
 of creation. But of the fact of this order of occur- 
 rence, there is now no shadow of doubt. 
 
 THE AFRICAN MAN-LIKE APE 
 
 In January of the present year, 1925, the world 
 became deeply interested in the announcement from 
 South Africa of the discovery of the skull of a 
 man-like ape, older and more primitive than any 
 other similar remains previously found. The dis- 
 coverer was Professor Raymond A. Dart, of the 
 Witwatersrand University, at Johannesburg, and 
 the find was made in an old cavern which had be- 
 come completely filled with embedded sand and 
 limestone. 
 
 Doctor Ales Hrdlicka, anthropologist of the 
 Smithsonian Institution in Washington, regards this 
 skull as an important link in the story of man’s 
 ancestral development. We are told that it is the 
 
THE RISE OF MAN 131 
 
 skull of a four-year-old child, which was just be- 
 ginning to cut its first permanent teeth. From the 
 nature of the rocks in which the skull was found it 
 is believed that it represents the oldest bit of evi- 
 dence yet discovered of man’s vast antiquity. 
 
 This skull has been described as that of a ‘‘man- 
 like’? ape, which means that its owner was an ape 
 which had started to evolve along the human line 
 of ascent. The ape-like form predominated, and yet 
 this skull reveals to the trained scientist distinctly 
 human characteristics. We have heard much about 
 the ‘‘missing link.’? However, there is not simply 
 one missing link, but many. These popularly termed 
 missing links are the forms intermediate between 
 lower types and human beings and possessing char- 
 acteristics of both. 
 
 In all probability the original possessor of this 
 skull lived nearly if not quite a million years ago 
 and looked out upon a world vastly different in ap- 
 pearance from ours of to-day. If the conclusions of 
 scientists are correct, he was still a beast, but one 
 whom God had already begun to fashion according 
 to the divine image. 
 
 THE JAVA MAN 
 
 Previously to this most recent discovery, the old- 
 est example of a human being was that of the so- 
 ealled Java Man, found in 1891 by Professor Dubois, 
 of Holland, at Trinil, Java, in rock strata whose fos- 
 sil population shows that this man lived upon the 
 earth at least a half million years ago. Sir Arthur 
 Keith, one of the world’s foremost anthropologists, 
 
132 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 that is, a scientist whose study is the structure and 
 functions of the human body, and particularly those 
 of primitive men, describes this man as ‘‘a being 
 human in stature, human in gait, human in all its 
 parts, save its brain.’’? He belonged to a genus that 
 is now extinct, but that he was simply one of a 
 numerous population like him, which inhabited cer- 
 tain portions of the earth at that time, there can 
 be no doubt. 
 
 The find consisted only of a skull-cap, a thigh- 
 bone, and two back teeth. Stull, the expert in this 
 field is able with a high degree of certainty to de- 
 termine the type of being who once used these bones, 
 and even to reconstruct his skeleton and describe his 
 physical characteristics. We are told that the Java 
 man possessed a low flat forehead, overhanging 
 brows, and a brain capacity about two-thirds that of 
 the modern skull. The thigh-bone shows that he 
 was well adapted either to standing or running and, 
 therefore, was in possession of the free use of his 
 hands. It may be that he was one of the primitive 
 men who fashioned the first rough stone imple- 
 ments. Belonging, as he did, to an extinct genus 
 and species, we know that his line was only a cousin, 
 so to speak, of the present race of men. 
 
 Associated with this find were the bones of a 
 large number of mammals belonging to genera and 
 species now extinct. At the time these sub-men 
 lived and died, their haunts were overrun with the 
 mammoth, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, a giant bea- 
 ver, bison, wild cattle and wild horses. Not till 
 many thousands of years later did men come into 
 
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 the possession of fire, and thereby take their first 
 step toward the real mastery of the earth. 
 
 THE HEIDELBERG MAN 
 
 Not for nearly a quarter of a million years after 
 the Java Man do we find, in turning over the fossil 
 record, the smallest fragment of a human skeleton. 
 And then at Heidelberg, in Baden, near the Rhine, 
 we find a Jaw-bone, buried in river deposits seventy- 
 nine feet below the surface. That is all, and yet the 
 teeth of this jaw are distinctly human. It is not 
 the jaw of an ape; neither is it similar to the jaw 
 of a modern human being, for its possessor could 
 have had no chin. Found in undisturbed deposits, 
 whose fossil population indicates an age of possibly 
 three hundred and fifty thousand years, we can not 
 escape the conclusion that this geologic relic with 
 its tell-tale teeth belonged to an individual who rep- 
 resents one more of the missing links in the long 
 ancestral line, or one of its side branches, which 
 led our forebears upward to the dawn of civiliza- 
 tion. If it does not, in view of its place of discov- 
 ery, what other explanation of its origin can be 
 given? 
 
 Side by side with it in the same deposits were 
 found implements of crude workmanship, and the 
 fossil remains of the straight-tusked elephant, the 
 Etruscan rhinoceros, the primitive horse, bison, 
 wild cattle, the bear, lion and other forms,—either 
 entirely extinct or not now inhabiting that por- 
 tion of the earth. None of the species then living 
 exists anywhere to-day. 
 
134 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 THE PILTDOWN MAN 
 
 Coming down a hundred thousand years, we find 
 at Piltdown, Sussex, England, the most ancient 
 human relic of the British Isles and the next dis- 
 covered link in the ancestral line. This man is 
 sometimes called the ‘‘Dawn Man.’’ In the same 
 gravel pits with these skeletal remains were found 
 the teeth of a rhinoceros, fossil bones of the hip- 
 popotamus, and the leg-bone of a deer, together with 
 ancient types of rough stone tools. Marks upon 
 the leg-bone of the deer may have been cuts in- 
 flicted by a weapon in the hands of some primitive 
 man. The geological evidence places the age of this 
 man at from one hundred and fifty thousand years 
 to two hundred thousand. 
 
 Although there has been considerable contro- 
 versy over the exact classification of the Piltdown 
 Man, Sir Arthur Keith makes the following state- 
 ment concerning his brain: 
 
 ‘“‘All the essential features of the brain of 
 modern man are to be seen in the brain cast. There 
 are some which must be regarded as primitive. 
 There can be no doubt that it is built on exactly the 
 same lines as our modern brains. A few minor 
 alternations would make it in all respects a modern 
 brain. . . . Although our knowledge of the human 
 brain is limited—there are large areas to which we 
 ean assign no definite function—we may rest 
 assured that a brain which was shaped in a mould 
 so similar to our own was one which responded to 
 the outside world as ours does. Piltdown man saw, 
 heard, felt, thought, and dreamt much as we do 
 still.’’ 
 
THE RISE OF MAN 135 
 
 And so we must allow the Piltdown Man to 
 stand as one more important piece of evidence in 
 substantiation of man’s slow rise through lower and 
 more primitive types. Although he was off the 
 main line of ascent, there can be no doubt that he 
 was a forerunner of what one day should appear 
 on the earth. 
 
 None of the men so far described belonged to 
 the genus Homo, the type of the modern man. Their 
 genera and species are now extinct. They were 
 closely related to the present type of human beings, 
 but they were not on the ‘‘line royal.’?’ The main 
 part of the tree from which these collateral lines 
 branched still lives, but they have become as dead 
 limbs. Just when and where the genus Homo arose, 
 we have, as yet, no knowledge. However, passing 
 over the Rhodesian Man, whose place and signif- 
 icance in the ancestral line are not yet fully de- 
 termined, we come now to a species which, though 
 extinct, at last foreshadowed the arrival of the 
 present breed of men. From the place of his dis- 
 covery, he is known as the Neanderthal Man. He 
 belonged to the genus Homo, and his race is well 
 established. 
 
 THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 
 
 The Neanderthal Man, belonging to a race which 
 occupied Europe for many thousands of years and 
 which probably did not become extinct to exceed 
 twenty-five thousand years ago, proves his exist- 
 ence and one-time sovereign sway, not by one skele- 
 ton merely, but by many. In 1856, in the Neanderthal 
 
136 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 Valley in Rhenish Prussia, there was found in a 
 little limestone cavern the perfect skeleton of a 
 man,—in some respects the most important discov- 
 ery concerning the prehistoric occupants of Contin- 
 tal Europe that has yet been made. The skeleton 
 was badly mutilated by those who found it and 
 partly lost. What remains is carefully preserved 
 in the museum at Bonn. Since then in caves in Bel- 
 gium, Croatia, France and at Gibraltar skeletons of 
 more than a dozen other specimens of this race, in- 
 cluding adults and children of both sexes, have been 
 found. Concerning this long-lived race of men 
 science speaks with no uncertain voice. It lived 
 within reasonable hailing distance of modern times 
 and has left us abundant evidence of its life and 
 customs. Huxley has given us the following de- 
 scription of its physical characteristics: 
 
 ‘‘The anatomical characters of the skeletons 
 bear out conclusions which are not flattering to the 
 appearance of the owners. They were short of 
 stature but powerfully built, with strong, curiously 
 curved thigh bones, the lower ends of which are so 
 fashioned that they must have walked with a bend 
 at the knees. Their long, depressed skulls had very 
 strong brow-ridges; their lower jaws, of brutal 
 depth and solidity, sloped away from the teeth 
 downwards and backwards, in consequence of the 
 absence of that especially characteristic feature of 
 the higher type of man, the chin prominence.”’ 
 
 These men lived through the Arctic cold of the 
 glacial climate and hunted wild beasts, many of 
 which are now extinct. They doubtless represented 
 the most enlightened people of the earth at that 
 
THE RISE OF MAN 137 
 
 time and had taken long strides in advance of their 
 more primitive forebears. They had acquired a 
 fair degree of skill in making stone implements, 
 and, most important of all, they had come into a 
 mastery of fire, as is shown by the hearths left in 
 their cave abodes. Their flints were beautifully 
 fashioned in a distinctive style. We know, too, that 
 this was a reverent race in whom had already been 
 implanted the belief in immortality; for they buried 
 their dead with much ceremony, providing them 
 with ornaments and implements and an abundance 
 of food, as though for a long journey. 
 
 Doubtless the bitter cold and extreme hardships 
 of the last Great Ice Age were too severe for the 
 survival of the Neanderthal Man, for he disap- 
 peared with great suddenness at about its close. 
 That is, we find no more flints or other implements 
 similar to those shaped by him in geological depos- 
 its of later origin than the accumulations of the last 
 elacial drift. That this race lived and died and 
 ruled the earth during a long period of the Rough 
 Stone Age, no one who acquaints himself with the 
 evidence can have the slightest doubt. The dura- 
 tion of its supremacy and the length of time inter- 
 vening since its disappearance can be estimated 
 with a fair degree of accuracy from the known 
 thickness of the geological deposits made during 
 and since its régime. Certain it is that the Neander- 
 thal race has vanished from the earth and that men 
 have traveled a long, long way since the days in 
 which it flourished. 
 
 Facts like these must loom large in any attempt 
 
138 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 to gain an adequate picture of man’s vast antiquity. 
 And have we any reason to believe that our present 
 stage of civilization represents more than a tran- 
 sient phase in the divine plan of evolution which 
 leads always to higher and higher levels? 
 
 THE CRO-MAGNON MEN 
 
 With the recession of the ice following the last 
 Glacial Age and the coming of sunnier skies and 
 milder climates, there gradually migrated into 
 Kurope, probably from South Asia or North Africa, 
 the world’s first known race of true men. They 
 were bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, belong- 
 ing to the species sapiens, which has persisted to 
 the present day. The race takes its name from the 
 grotto of Cro-Magnon in France, in which a num- 
 ber of complete skeletons of one of the main types 
 of these Newer Rough Stone men were found. Other 
 skeletons of this race have been discovered in a 
 number of caves upon the Continent. Where and 
 how the ancestors of these cousins to the Neander- 
 thal men arose, no one can say. But certain it is 
 that when these gifted people came upon the scene 
 of action and took their part as the leading actors 
 in the great drama of human events, they had al- 
 ready attained to the status of modern men. 
 
 It is thought that these Cro-Magnon men were 
 for a time contemporary with the last representa- 
 tives of the Neanderthal race, but there is no evi- 
 dence that the two races intermingled. And this 
 places their emergence in the theater of Huropean 
 affairs at about twenty-five or thirty thousand years 
 
THE RISE OF MAN 139 
 
 ago. These successors and heirs of all that had gone 
 before were the real cave-men of whom we so often 
 read. Comprising at least one other race, the 
 Grimaldi of a negroid type, these post-glacial 
 peoples represent an enormous leap forward in the 
 development of mankind, possibly a human ‘‘muta- 
 tion’’ similar in character to the sudden and un- 
 accountable evolution of a new species, occasionally 
 observed in the animal and plant worlds. In 
 stature the Cro-Magnon people were exceptionally 
 large, their faces were broad, their noses promi- 
 nent, and their brains astonishingly big, bigger 
 even than those of the present inhabitants of the 
 earth. In the making of stone implements,— 
 knives, scrapers, gravers and similar tools,—they 
 were superior to any race that had preceded them. 
 Their elaborate burial customs indicate a fixed be- 
 lef in life after death. They lived among and 
 hunted numerous species of animals now extinct. 
 The tusk of a mammoth brought down to us from 
 that far distant past carries the rude but certain 
 portrait of the beast himself scratched upon its 
 surface. And it is in the art of these people, of 
 which we have many examples, that we see emerg- 
 ing the soul of man and descry in the evolution of 
 the human race the hand of an Almighty Guide. 
 Within the caves we find expressions of their art in 
 statues and upon the walls numerous drawings and 
 paintings portraying animals of that time, animal 
 types never seen by men within the span of recorded 
 history, and scenes from their daily life. Professor 
 Henry F. Osborn, President of the American Mu- 
 
140 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 seum of Natural History and a foremost authority 
 in the field of prehistoric man, writing in The 
 Forum, for February, 1925, says of this gifted 
 people: 
 
 ‘We have every reason to believe that the Cro- 
 Magnon men, who dominated northern Spain, 
 France and Wngland between twenty-five and forty 
 thousand years ago, could compete in the art 
 schools with any of the animal sculptors and paint- 
 ers of our day, and judging from the size and form 
 of the brain of the Cro-Magnon youth I believe that 
 they could enter any branch of the intellectual life 
 of to-day on equal, if not superior, terms. We know 
 that they were mystical and superstitious and _ be- 
 heved in magic; we know that in their art they were 
 truthful. We know that they were reverent, be- 
 cause in the thousands of drawings, etchings and 
 paintings they have left not a single irreverent one 
 has been discovered, except in some of their repre- 
 sentations of man. We know that they were con- 
 scientious, because their drawing has the marks of 
 fidelity to truth, to the last detail. We know that 
 they loved beauty, because they rapidly attained the 
 full expression of beauty.’’ 
 
 And of the cave man, Professor Osborn has 
 this to say: ‘‘The cave man bore, and still bears, 
 an evil reputation, because few people recognize 
 that during the long cave period there were two 
 entirely different types of man,—one an extremely 
 ancient lower order, suddenly succeeded in Europe 
 by one of much higher order. Creation of this 
 man of a higher order, known as the Cro-Magnon, 
 with his moral, spiritual and intellectual powers is 
 utterly incomprehensible as purely a survival of 
 the fittest.’’ 
 
THE RISE OF MAN 141 
 
 And so itis. Any conception of evolution which 
 makes it less than the expression of an infinite and 
 all-wise purpose, slowly but irresistibly moving 
 forward and upward throughout the ages, breaks 
 down utterly in its attempt to account for the suc- 
 cessive races of men, and for the sudden emergence 
 of a race of peculiar gifts and superior genius. 
 
 MEN OF THE POLISHED STONE AND METAL AGES 
 
 But at length the brilliant Cro-Magnon race dis- 
 appeared. Other varieties of the human family 
 crowded into Europe, bringing with them the bow 
 and arrow and domesticated animals. The new- 
 comers, too, were tillers of the soul, and they re- 
 placed the rudely dressed stone implements of their 
 predecessors with beautiful products of polished 
 stone. The coming of these men of the Polished 
 Stone Age dates from about twelve thousand years 
 ago, and the evidences of their culture are legion. 
 
 These are the first people to leave a record of 
 their craftmanship in Denmark and Scandinavia. 
 An investigation of the peat bogs of the Danish 
 Peninsula has disclosed a bottom layer derived 
 from the Scotch fir, now extinct in those regions, 
 followed by a second layer consisting of the re- 
 mains of oak trees of different varieties, since 
 largely disappeared from Denmark, and finally by 
 a third layer made up of fallen beeches, the most. 
 familiar tree in the peninsula at the present time. 
 But what is more significant, the bottom layer of 
 these bogs often contains implements of polished 
 - stone, the middle layer relics of bronze, while the 
 
142 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 top layer exhibits specimens of workmanship 
 wrought in iron. And that is always the story,— 
 the oldest geological deposits preserve the most 
 primitive examples of man’s art, followed in regu- 
 lar order by those displaying a constantly higher 
 degree of skill. Here is evolution of a kind,—the 
 emergent soul of man ever expanding from smaller 
 to larger spheres of activity. If there is no unseen 
 Directing Agency, why this ceaseless progression? 
 Men have come and men have gone, but, despite 
 occasional darkness, there has always emerged a 
 higher, a better and a nobler type of life and 
 society. May not the creative purpose behind the 
 races of men in this and, mayhap, other worlds 
 manifest itself by a silent upward movement ex- 
 tending across the infinite reaches of time, as truly 
 as though it spent itself in a day or a week? 
 
 The men of the polished stone implements were 
 followed by the men of bronze and iron. Was it 
 mere chance which led some primitive ancestor, in 
 raking over the dying embers of his spent fire, to 
 descry shining globules of metal? Was it only 
 accident which taught him to alloy copper and tin 
 to form bronze? What led him from the Age of 
 Bronze to the Age of Iron? What put into the 
 minds of these advancing men the first rudimentary 
 knowledge of the simple machines? Can we see 
 only a hit-and-miss process in this steady progress 
 which gave to the race homes and language, indus- 
 tries, laws, liberties, government, literature, art, 
 music and religion? Does it seem possible that 
 achievements so divine could arise from the spon- 
 
THE RISE OF MAN 143 
 
 taneous, and unguided actions of human autom- 
 atons? Utterly unthinkable, without the idea of 
 God, is this steady evolution, proceeding out of 
 the misty past and leading on from brute to civil- 
 ized man. 
 
 Much evidence tends to show that man sprang 
 from several human stocks. There is no scientific 
 basis whatever for the contention that all the races 
 of men have descended from a single pair. Indeed, 
 the facts point in the opposite direction. Whence 
 came the yellow, black and brown races, numerically 
 even more important than the white race? To as- 
 sume that they have all descended from Adam, 
 though they do belong to the same species, involves 
 a belief in some sort of evolution. The period of 
 time required, too, for such racial differentiation 
 as actually exists would be far greater than any 
 Fundamentalist would be willing to admit. In the 
 light of modern research, this Hebrew idea of man’s 
 origin must be regarded as purely mythical. 
 
 And so the races of men multiplied and con- 
 tinued to advance until they subdued the earth. 
 They have tamed the sea and conquered the air. The 
 lightning and the boundless ether have become 
 their obedient servants. The giant steam has long 
 been the plaything of Homo sapiens, and at his 
 magic touch the vast storehouses of natural wealth 
 have yielded up their ages-old treasure. With his 
 telescopes he has explored the mysteries of the stars 
 and extended the frontiers of the universe by untold 
 billions of miles. With his microscopes he has 
 brought within his penetrating gaze the marvelous 
 
144 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 perfection existing in the world of the infinitesi- 
 mally small. The secrets of the atoms and the 
 molecules have responded to his never-tiring search 
 for truth. Inexhaustible, irrepressive energy surges 
 in his veins. Creative evolution still governs the 
 destiny of man, leading him on to deeper insight, 
 larger visions, broader horizons, nobler achieve- 
 ments. And creative evolution is but another name 
 for God. ’ 
 
 Yes, again we say, man has risen,—not fallen. 
 Behind him stretches a past of stupendous accom- 
 plishment. But it is only the beginning, for before 
 him lies a future of immeasurable possibilities. 
 Many men of science see in the biological tenden- 
 cies of the race imminent disaster to the present 
 state of society, but at most the eclipse can only be 
 temporary. Emerging from its shadow, centuries 
 hence it may be, will come a breed of men fit to 
 earry on the work of God. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 Tur Recorp or Man’s Divinity 
 
 SoMEWHERE in the ages-old climb of man from 
 brute to civilized human being, there was unfolded 
 in his awakening soul the dawning consciousness 
 of his divine origin. As naturally as the flower 
 unfolds from the bud, or the sun, when still be- 
 neath the horizon, converts the blackness of the 
 night into the first twilight shadows of approach- 
 ing dawn, there came a time, millenniums ago, when 
 man, standing forth under the stars and looking up 
 at the heavens, caught the first faint glimmer of a 
 “light that never was on land or sea.’’ He began 
 to feel the birth-pangs of his God-conscious soul. 
 For the first time deep responded unto deep. 
 In the inmost recesses of his being, was the 
 feeble consciousness of a divine order outside of his 
 beast-like self. And, as the centuries passed, this 
 growing sense of kinship with something nobler and 
 finer than himself struck its roots constantly deeper 
 into his subconseious mind. Within his dull brain 
 awoke the sense of beauty. A new light shone in 
 his eyes. A feeling of separateness from the wild 
 beasts about him took possession of his soul. The 
 savage impulses, fostered by the long, long strug- 
 gle for existence, began to soften under the influ- 
 
 145 
 
146 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 ence of this new-born sense of uniqueness. Through 
 unnumbered ages, the innate faculty of reason slowly 
 evolved into the personality of the human spirit. 
 Then gradually, very gradually, came thoughts of 
 gods and grave mysterious wonderings as to the 
 earth and the sea and the stars. | 
 This expanding sense of power slowly and pain- 
 fully manifested itself in the simple arts of the 
 Stone Ages and in themastery of fire. Step by step 
 primitive man conquered his environment and at 
 length arrived at the threshold of civilization. 
 Along the way he had acquired the art of language 
 and the rudiments of writing. And more significant 
 still, the Neanderthal men, possibly fifty thousand 
 years ago, had attained to the hope of immortality 
 and doubtless to a belief in a Supreme Being. We 
 know this from their elaborate burial customs and 
 provision for the spirit’s welfare, as disclosed in 
 the explorations of the prehistoric cave dwellings of 
 Kurope. Particularly is this true of the gifted 
 Cro-Magnon race which lived contemporaneously 
 with the Neanderthal men during their latter cen- 
 turies and succeeded to the mastery of the land. 
 We do not need to trace here the superstitious 
 beliefs of primitive men in Nature spirits and the 
 slow evolution of the idea of many gods into the 
 majestic conception of one Supreme Being who 
 rules not only the heavens, but the earth and all the 
 races of men. In every cradle of civilization, these 
 early beliefs developed into established religions. 
 They constitute one of the most significant and 
 unique features of the evolution of man. Implicit 
 
THE RECORD OF MAN’S DIVINITY 147 
 
 in the creative urge back of all life must have been 
 this sense of divinity, this restlessness of the human 
 soul, this feeling of incompleteness which led men, 
 even just emerged from savagery, to grope for 
 God and to build altars for His worship. Incurably 
 religious, man could not adapt himself to his en- 
 vironment or satisfy the longings of his soul with- 
 out supplementing the strivings of his earthly ex- 
 istence with a belief in God and immortality. 
 
 And from the very infancy of civilization, men 
 began to have vague wonderings as to how the 
 earth and the heavens came into existence. Child- 
 like, too, they invented crude stories of creation. 
 They pictured powerful gods, enlarged human be- 
 ings, as creating the heavens and the earth and all 
 animal and plant life out of nothing within the 
 short space of a few brief days at a comparatively 
 recent moment of cosmic time. There was not one 
 such story only, but many. And these stories were 
 handed down orally for centuries before they were 
 committed to written form. They are among the 
 most impressive evidences of man’s divinity. Only 
 a being who is essentially divine would have framed 
 in the very childhood of the race such noble concep- 
 tions of his origin. The wealth of learning in all 
 -the centuries which have followed has not been able 
 to overshadow the fundamental spiritual truth 
 which they contained. | 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 
 
 The sacred literature of the Hebrew Bible, which 
 enshrines the highest conception of God and the 
 
148 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 noblest evolution of religious faith to be found 
 anywhere in the annals of men, grew like any other 
 literature. It was subject to the same laws. It was 
 a product of its times. It struck its roots deep into 
 the myth and legend and tradition of the immense 
 prehistoric background which has preceded every 
 civilization. What we have to-day bears the same 
 relation to the countless centuries of early toil and 
 struggle, suffering and hardship, defeat and 
 triumph, joy and gladness, hope and faith that the 
 foliage of a tree bears to the branches, trunk and 
 roots. The Bible is the world’s classic record of 
 religious experience. It is vastly more a book about 
 men and their growing conception of God than it is 
 a book of divine revelation. Both in what it records 
 of known history and in what it discloses of its 
 heritage from the immeasurable spiritual riches of 
 preceding millenniums, the Bible portrays the evo- 
 lution of the human soul ag it is to be found in no 
 other literature. In it we may trace the ever-ex- 
 panding growth of any idea, such as God, man, 
 duty, justice, sin, worship, as it broadened its scope 
 and deepened its meaning throughout the slow up- 
 ward climb of the race from infancy to maturity. 
 In the Old Testament we may see the gradual de- 
 velopment of those faiths and ethical ideals which 
 came to triumph in the Christian religion. 
 
 But the origin of these sacred books was not 
 miraculous. As Doctor J. Paterson Smyth, one of 
 the world’s foremost authorities in the field of 
 Biblical literature, has pointed out, the orthodox’ 
 belief in a divinely dictated authorship of thé books 
 
THE RECORD OF MAN’S DIVINITY 149 
 
 of the Old Testament was never more than an as- 
 sumption. To-day, no scholar of standing holds to 
 that view. These books are very human documents, 
 and yet they are divine. In them we gather vivid 
 pictures of the life from which they sprang. They 
 reveal more or less clearly what the narratives, 
 laws, rituals, doctrines and customs of these people 
 meant to the generations in which they arose. The 
 wealth and variety of its literature is unsurpassed 
 in any other volume. It has been a treasure house of 
 material for writers in every century of the Chris- 
 tian Era. Take from the English classics or from 
 any form of Western literature the contribution of 
 the Scriptures and there would be little left. In 
 this perennial source of literary inspiration, we 
 find poetry of every description,—lyric, didactic, 
 dramatic; passionate songs of war, affectionate 
 love-songs, sublime descriptions of Nature, devout 
 hymns of worship. And there we find, too, biogra- 
 phies, collections of laws, legal documents, chro- 
 nologies, the crystallized wisdom of many ages, 
 religious rituals and ceremonials, romances, par- 
 ables, legends and traditions of the past, the dream 
 literature of apocalyptic visions, letters, historical 
 records, and the inspired utterances of prophet and 
 reformer. Like any other literature, some of the 
 writings in this unique collection are of little merit. 
 They bear the impress of their very human origin. 
 But, all in all, these productions of the Hebrew race 
 take rank among the noblest literary and religious 
 masterpieces of all time. They were the outcome 
 of many minds in many times, from the prophet, 
 
150 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 sage and seer of the dim shadowy ages of prehis- 
 toric men to the apostles of Christian faith in the 
 beginnings of our own era. In speaking of the 
 earlier historical books, Matthew Arnold said: ‘‘To 
 that collection many an old book had given up its 
 treasures, and then itself vanished forever. Many 
 voices were blended there—unknown voices, speak- 
 ing out of the early dawn.’’ 
 
 And yet these crystallizations of the soul’s strug- 
 gle for expression and a realization of its noblest 
 ideals are more than human. They are as much a 
 part of the divine progress of all creation as is the 
 life cycle of a solar system or the pageant of or- 
 ganic evolution. They have sounded the greatest 
 depths and touched the loftiest summits of human 
 experience that the world has ever known. They 
 are the noblest examples of the ‘‘life of God in the 
 soul of man.’’ But they are not unique. Wherever 
 men have climbed upward and struggled and suf- 
 fered and triumphed, there we see a revelation of 
 the spark of divinity which lights the soul of every 
 human being. Every great religion is an expres- 
 sion of God. He is the Creator of every race, and, 
 although the moral and spiritual qualities of the 
 soul have flowered most conspicuously in the He- 
 brew branch of the human family, this religion is 
 not the only one which reveals the guiding hand of 
 an Infinite Purpose. Religions and this unfolding 
 of the divine in man were old long before the He- 
 brew people appeared at the threshold of civiliza- 
 tion. Just as the fossil record of the rocks reveals 
 to us the story of the earth’s past organic evolution, 
 
THE RECORD OF MAN’S DIVINITY 151 
 
 so does the Hebrew Bible preserve the world’s most 
 notable example of spiritual evolution. And this 
 Bible is both human and divine. 
 
 The Bible is not infallible, nor is it free from 
 error. In the earlier portions, its representations 
 of God are occasionally childish and sometimes 
 morally degrading. Some of its statements are 
 absurd, and they are frequently subject to exag- 
 geration. The crudities of its scientific teaching 
 are such as we should expect from an infant race 
 living in an age of ignorance and superstition. 
 The supposition that they were divinely revealed 
 by God to the Old Testament writers convicts the 
 Almighty of astounding ignorance of the product of 
 His own handiwork. Surely, had the Creator of the 
 heavens spoken directly to the authors of the Story 
 of Creation, He would not have given to them ideas 
 so at variance with the revelations of modern as- 
 tronomy. But the Bible, of course, is not a text- 
 book of science. The poetry of Genesis does not 
 give exact information regarding the origin of the 
 earth, the heavenly hosts, and the creation of life. 
 As literal description, these crude notions of the 
 universe are absurd, to be sure. They represent 
 only the passing fancies of a childlike people in the 
 infaney of the race. That they should ever have 
 been placed alongside the discoveries of modern 
 science, as being of equal and indeed superior valid- 
 ity, is one of the most astounding marvels of his- 
 tory. The prevalence of such ideas among the 
 docile peoples of the Middle Ages and the imagina- 
 tive theologians of the early church is quite under- 
 
152 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 standable. But utterly unworthy of the immense 
 benefits flowing from scientific research are those 
 unenlightened would-be leaders of their fellow-men 
 who would pin the spiritual progress of mankind 
 to-day to a literal belief in the myths and legends of 
 prehistoric times,—and that in the face of the most 
 astounding array of scientific evidence to the con- 
 trary that ever confronted the intelligence of men. 
 As well believe in giants, fairies, demons and 
 witches. Both beliefs go back to the dim shadows 
 of man’s evolutionary past. But it is a curious fact 
 that those who deny most strenuously this ascent 
 of man from a lowly origin cling most tenaciously 
 to childish and superstitious beliefs springing from 
 that very past. 
 
 Still those scientific crudities, when viewed in 
 their proper setting, in no way mar the transcendent 
 beauty of the Story of Creation or impair the su- 
 preme spiritual truth which it unfolds. This match- 
 less poetic conception of the origin of things 
 crystallized for all time a belief in one God, a 
 Supreme Being, who is the immanent source of all 
 creation. That the facts of scientific discovery 
 should indicate that our solar system had its origin 
 in a nebula and that organic life, taking its begin- 
 ning's in very simple forms, slowly evolved through 
 unnumbered eons, until the animal line of ascent 
 culminated in man, ‘‘a little lower than the angels, 
 crowned with glory and honor,’’ neither detracts 
 from the majesty of God nor challenges the unique- 
 ness and nobility of man. No more striking evidence 
 of man’s divinity can be found than this sublime 
 
THE RECORD OF MAN’S DIVINITY 153 
 
 conception of creation. It marks the first great 
 turning-point in the spiritual evolution of the race. 
 Like a beacon light from man’s primitive cradle, it 
 shines across the centuries, even to-day, with un- 
 diminished brightness. Why should men ever have 
 east a reflection upon the overshadowing spiritual 
 truth of this noble conception of God and the Divine 
 Immanence by insisting upon its literal accuracy as 
 a description of creation? As actual method, this 
 mythical story is grotesque; as a symbol of the 
 fundamental fact of the universe, it is sublime. 
 
 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS 
 
 Yes, there aré legends in Genesis. But legends 
 are not lies. A legend is a particular form of poetry. 
 And why should not the lofty spirit of the Old Tes- 
 tament, which has found expression in so many 
 varieties of poetry also make use of legend? It is 
 but natural that such a highly imaginative people 
 as the Israelitish should have made poetic narrative 
 the vehicle of its religious thought. In these oral 
 transmissions of popular traditions, the history of 
 every primitive people begins. And it must not be 
 forgotten that prehistoric memories may be pre- 
 served in these legendary tales of family and tribal 
 life. Starting with a nucleus of historic fact or 
 some great spiritual truth, these incidents of primi- 
 tive life, transmitted for centuries by word of 
 mouth, worked over by the imagination, enlarged 
 upon and altered in many details, become one of 
 the most precious legacies from the unrecorded 
 past. They often deal with the intimate scenes of 
 
154 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 family life,—not with important historic events. 
 The legends of Genesis have to do largely with the 
 family of Abraham, which gave rise to the patri- 
 archs of Israel. In them popular tradition has pre- 
 served much that is trivial and unimportant histor- 
 ically, but of wonderful interest as character 
 sketches of the people, such as anecdotes of country 
 life, tales of springs and watering-troughs, revela- 
 tions of jealousy, deception, piety and magnanimity, 
 incidents of war and stories of personal prowess. 
 Little did those simple folk in those far-off 
 days of family and tribal supremacy realize that 
 they were making the beginnings of a sacred liter- 
 ature. Yet, those poetic legends, rude ballads and 
 fierce war songs, told and sung for centuries by 
 bard and story-teller about the fireside and the well, 
 became the nucleus around which our Bible grew. 
 To this ever-increasing stream of oral tradition 
 were added simple codes of justice, bits of history, 
 and stories related in lonely pastures ‘‘when shep- 
 herds watched their flocks by night.’’? The practised 
 story-tellers at feasts and tribal gatherings took the 
 place of modern books, We can picture groups, 
 reverent with worship or gay with merry-making, 
 listening to these patriarchal legends, singing songs 
 of war and love, and often gaining from prophet 
 and seer truer and larger conceptions of their great 
 God, Jehovah. Repeated over and over from gen- 
 eration to generation at wayside watering-place 
 and public sanctuary, these stories from the past, 
 often retaining but a fragment of the original set- 
 ting, became part and parcel of the racial legacy. 
 
 ‘\ 
 
THE RECORD OF MAN’S DIVINITY 155 
 
 We must freely recognize, however, that centuries 
 of oral transmission among a childlike and imag- 
 inative people would tend to add much which is 
 pure invention. Heroes are idealized. Stories are 
 enlarged and altered. And yet we know that we are 
 dealing with the traditions of real men and women, 
 who lived and died and loved and fought and met 
 both victory and defeat. True, their simple faith 
 enabled them to believe many things which we 
 know to be utterly incredible. But credulity was a 
 chief characteristic of those early times of ignor- 
 ance and superstition. And this very ear-mark 
 of their age gives an added charm to these simple 
 beginnings of Hebrew poetry. Most important of 
 all, we trace in them the noblest conception of a 
 divine order of the universe to be found in any 
 early literature. 
 
 And so, preceding the Bible, as we have it to-day, 
 lay an immense background of unexampled literary 
 riches. It struck its roots deep into the prehistoric 
 sources of its own and other peoples’. Most of this 
 ancient lore is lost. But fortunately the excava- 
 tions of archeologists have enabled scholars to trace 
 the very considerable contributions of other liter- 
 atures to our sacred books. Particularly important 
 was the influence of the Chaldeo-Babylonian and 
 Egyptian civilizations. Many of these precious 
 treasures of ancient thought are preserved for us 
 in the legends of Genesis. And, contrary to the 
 earlier belief, Genesis was by no means the first of 
 the sacred books to be compiled. In completed 
 form, the Pentateuch, of which it is a part, dates 
 
156 PHROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 from about 400 B. C., many centuries after other 
 portions of the Old Testament had taken shape. 
 With this knowledge, obtained by applying to the 
 Scriptures the same methods of scientific investiga- 
 tion that are employed in all other branches of his- 
 torical research, much becomes clear which was 
 before a mist. We now know that the legends of 
 the Creation and the Deluge were not written until 
 after the Hebrew people had come under the tutel- 
 age of their Chaldean neighbors in the valley of the 
 Tigris and the Euphrates. That the rich legacy 
 from the religious literature of this earlier civiliza- 
 tion had a profound influence in shaping these 
 legends, there is not a shadow of doubt. That they 
 did not originate with the Hebrew people is no 
 longer open to question. That they were a direct 
 revelation from the Almighty of actual events, now, 
 has no more credibility than the belief in Santa 
 Claus. Whoever still clings to the literal interpre- 
 tation of these mythical stories, has not taken the 
 trouble to inform himself of facts which for many ~ 
 years have been open to the knowledge of all. 
 
 But let us see what these investigations of the 
 archeologists have disclosed. Just as the geologist 
 investigates the fossil record of the rocks, so does 
 the archeologist uncover the debris of ancient civil- 
 izations. He permits us again to walk the streets 
 of those old cities, to feel the heart-beats of their 
 peoples, and in imagination to picture the humanity 
 that once struggled and thought and dreamed and 
 suffered there. He enables us to catch glimpses of 
 the life of those peoples,—their customs, laws, 
 domestic habits and religious faiths. 
 
THE RECORD OF MAN’S DIVINITY 157 
 
 In 1851 Major Rawlinson published the first 
 translation of the Assyrian inscriptions, and in so 
 doing began the uncovering of a civilization which 
 antedates that of the Hebrew people by many cen- 
 turies. It was already old in the year 4004 B. C., 
 the date assigned by the sacred chronology for the 
 creation of the heavens and the earth. And two 
 thousand years before the legendary date of Abra- 
 ham’s migration from Ur of the Chaldees, this 
 Chaldean civilization had achieved much in art, 
 science and literature. Many eminent scholars 
 have contributed to our knowledge of these treas- 
 ures of antiquity, chief among whom was George 
 Smith, who in 1872 found in the ancient library of 
 Asshurbanipal the first of the tablets giving an 
 exceedingly close parallel of the story of the deluge. 
 Soon after, he discovered in these ancient ruins 
 more of the deluge tablets and all those giving the 
 Story of Creation. That these sacred myths and 
 legends were already old when the Hebrew writers 
 incorporated them into their Bible is no longer a 
 matter of speculation. Their roots penetrate into 
 the legendary past, not only of the ancient civiliza- 
 tions of the Tigris and the Euphrates, but of other 
 early peoples. Few races in their infancy have 
 failed to wonder about the origin of the stars and 
 the earth and man. Of course, no man was present 
 at the creation of the universe, and no human tradi- 
 tion extends back to the origin of the race. Still 
 the divine urge of creative evolution has impelled 
 primitive peoples everywhere to seek an explana- 
 tion of the whence and whither of life and of the 
 
158 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 universe of which they are a part. To their imag- 
 inative minds and simple faiths, all miraculously 
 sprang into existence at some definite and recent 
 moment of past time, in obedience to divine fiat. 
 But what do these tablets of ancient Assyria 
 reveal? As is to be expected, there are both 
 striking similarity and divergence between the 
 accounts unearthed by the spade of the archeologist 
 and those found in the worked over legends of 
 Genesis, but the essential ideas are the same in 
 both. According to the story told by the tablets, 
 out of a watery chaos, a divine power brings forth 
 the earth and its inhabitants. He creates first the 
 sea animals and then those of the land, the latter 
 being classified into three groups, practically 
 identical with those of the Scriptural account. At 
 various stages of the process, the Chaldean divinity 
 pronounces the work ‘‘beautiful,’’ just as the 
 Hebrew Creator pronounces it ‘‘good.’’ In the 
 Chaldean legend, we find the solid firmament of 
 heaven, and in both accounts light is created first 
 and afterward the heavenly bodies are placed ‘‘for 
 signs and for seasons.’’ Very significant is it, too, 
 that these Assyrian tablets contain two stories of 
 creation, wonderfully similar to the two Hebrew 
 narratives found in the first and second chapters of 
 Genesis. We discover in these remarkable revela- 
 tions of primitive thought evidence of the Chaldean 
 belief in the creation of woman out of man, in the 
 Garden of Eden and its mystical tree, and in the 
 fall of man through sin from a state of innocence. 
 Here, too, we find the institution of the Sabbath 
 

 
 From “The Bible in the Making,” by J. Paterson Smyth. 
 -By permission of James Pott and Company. 
 
 BOOKS WRITTEN ON BRICKS 
 
 One of the tablets giving the Chaldean account of the 
 Deluge and the Story of Creation. Excavated in the early 
 seventies, now in the British Museum. 
 
' 
 Pf 
 
 at 
 
 . 
 . 
 
 
 
HE RECORD OF MAN’S DIVINITY 159 
 
 and even its name, the mythical Tower of Babel, 
 and much else that appears in the Pentateuch. 
 
 But it is in the legends of the deluge that the 
 resemblance is most apparent. In the Assyrian 
 narrative, Hasisadra is apprised of the coming 
 flood and is bidden by the gods to build a ship one 
 hundred twenty cubits in height and of equal 
 breadth. In it he took refuge with his slaves and 
 family and stores of food. In accordance with the 
 divine summons, he also preserved cattle and beasts 
 of the earth and fowl of the air. In striking sim- 
 ilarity to the Biblical account, the ship was pitched 
 within and without. Hasisadra entered and closed 
 the door and the flood came. So terrible was the 
 storm that the gods in heaven were frightened and 
 wept. The flood lasted for six days, during which 
 the occupants of the ship watched the corpses 
 floating by. On the seventh day, the waters began 
 to subside, and after seven days more the ship 
 came to rest on the mountains of Nizir. The poem 
 narrates the sending forth of a dove, a swallow 
 and a raven and the offering of sacrifice, concern- 
 ing which it relates that ‘‘The gods smelt the 
 savor,’’ even as the account in Genesis contains the 
 remarkably similar statement ‘‘And Jehovah 
 smelled the sweet savor.’’ And finally, we are told 
 how the Goddess Istar lighted up the rainbow in 
 the heavens. 
 
 Regarding such amazing discoveries, there can 
 be but one verdict, particularly so when we know 
 that the Genesis narratives were not compiled 
 until after the Babylonian bondage of the Hebrew 
 
160 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 people. That these stories are poetic narratives of 
 what infant races imagined to be true, there is no 
 longer any doubt. And now, written on tablets of 
 stone, we have the authentic source of the Hebrew 
 versions. The numerous accounts of a flood, found 
 among the traditions of the Greeks, the Chinese 
 and the American Indians, as well as among those 
 of other early peoples, leave little doubt that some 
 such catastrophe once engulfed a considerable por- 
 tion of the earth since the beginning of its inhabita- 
 tion by the human family. 
 
 But let us not fail to note that these old legends 
 from the prehistoric cradles of primitive civiliza- 
 tions were transfigured by the divine touch of 
 Hebrew thought. They were refined and purified in 
 the crucible of living truth. From the polytheism 
 of early thinking, we pass in the Genesis narratives 
 to the transcendent conception of one God. It is 
 like going from the humid bacteria-laden atmos- 
 phere of the lowlands to the invigorating air of 
 mountain summits. And in the tremendous con- 
 trast between these two undeniably related accounts 
 of the origin of the universe and its life, we see the 
 most notable example of the spiritual evolution of 
 the race to be found anywhere in the sacred liter- 
 ature of the world. It constitutes an undoubted 
 record of man’s divinity, as ineffaceable as the 
 fossil imprints of early geologic life in the solid 
 crust of the earth. 
 
 With these overshadowing facts of spiritual 
 values in the background, we can pass over the 
 serious discrepancies in the two accounts of crea- 
 
THE RECORD OF MAN’S DIVINITY 161 
 
 tion, their crude notions concerning the person of 
 God, and the unscientific features of their imag- 
 inary universe. What God said or thought in the 
 councils of heaven, we know to be pure invention. 
 We know that the ‘‘firmament of heaven’’ is an 
 optical illusion; that the sun and stars did not come 
 into existence after plants; that the rivers of the 
 earth do not come chiefly from four principal 
 streams; that the Tigris and the Kuphrates have 
 not a common source; that the Dead Sea antedates 
 historical times; that only a small fraction of the 
 hundreds of thousands of species of animals could 
 have been got into the ark; that God did not walk 
 in the Garden of Eden ‘‘in the cool of the day’’; 
 that He did not make for Adam and Eve clothes 
 from skins; that there is no evidence that the 
 nations of the earth sprang from a single fam- 
 ily; that it is highly improbable that Cain founded 
 a city; that serpents do not speak; that there is no 
 tree whose fruit confers knowledge or immortality; 
 and that God does not speak with a human voice. 
 All this and much more we now know to have been 
 but literary incidents in the poetic narratives of a 
 highly imaginative and exceptionally religious race. 
 Ever to have identified them with actual events is 
 one of the most grotesque errors of history. To 
 persist in doing so in this twentieth century of en- 
 lightenment is a crime against truth. To make 
 belief in the literal accuracy of these outgrown 
 legends essential to spiritual health is pathetic. 
 Although the details can not be given here, 
 Kigyptologists, by the application of the same 
 
162 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 methods of scientific research, have shown the large 
 contribution made by the lore of the ancient Nile 
 to the making of our Bible. But these discoveries, 
 far from belittling the importance of our sacred 
 books, enhance their value. They simply demon- 
 strate that sacred literature, instead of being a 
 sudden revelation, is the product of a slow evolu- 
 tion from a remote past. It is the crystallization 
 of the spiritual wealth of the ages. Its sources are 
 multitudinous and its background the rich and 
 varied religious experiences of mankind. But that 
 this literature is unique in its origin, that it is free 
 from error and does not bear the impress of human 
 frailty, is a belief which the revelations of science 
 and archeology have long since shattered. 
 
 Still we must recognize in the growth of every 
 such literature the unfolding of the divinity in man 
 and throughout the whole course of its development 
 the Divine Immanence of an Infinite Guide. As 
 Doctor John A. Rice has said, in our Bible we see 
 ‘‘the life of God flowing through the soul of the 
 Hebrew people.’’? Their idea of God is now material, 
 now spiritual, but purifies itself as time goes on and 
 continually rises to larger cycles and higher levels. 
 When we silhouette the religious experiences of the 
 race against the background of the ages, it is not 
 difficult to discern the unfoldment of a divine 
 progress, even as we do in the evolution of solar 
 systems and organic life. 
 
 THE BIBLE AND INSPIRATION 
 
 What do we mean when we think of the inspira- 
 
THE RECORD OF MAN’S DIVINITY 163 
 
 tion of the Scriptures, particularly the inspiration 
 of the Old Testament? Certainly not verbal dic- 
 tation. No scholar of standing to-day believes that 
 God ever directly revealed any portion of our sacred 
 books. Had He done so, they would not contain so 
 much that is false. The Scriptures would not then 
 give, as they often do, a picture of a God of passion, 
 jealousy, remorse, cruelty and caprice. They would 
 not mirror so perfectly the various stages in the 
 spiritual evolution of the Hebrew people. The God 
 of the universe would never have revealed Himself 
 as a tribal deity. Had not the Hebrew people in 
 their youth attributed to God their own ethical 
 standards, we should not read that Jehovah com- 
 manded the extermination of the Amalekites,— 
 ‘‘both man and woman, infant and suckling.’’ The 
 God of humanity and compassion, whom we worship 
 to-day, would not have administered through His 
 prophet Samuel a rebuke to Saul because he had 
 spared Agag. A God of direct revelation would not 
 have represented Himself as attempting to kill a 
 man, as an exhibition of pure malice, at a wayside 
 lodging-house. Had God dictated the account of 
 creation, what mysteries He might have solved for 
 us mortals! We should never have had to speculate 
 about the Nebular Hypothesis, the actual factors in 
 creative evolution, and the secrets of the atoms and 
 the molecules. The world would not have had to 
 wait for Galileo to reveal the structure of the 
 heavens. Had Scripture been as inerrant as early 
 theologians, and some to-day, imagined, what mighty 
 controversies this poor earth would have been 
 
164 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 spared! No, the evidences of human handiwork are 
 written large from cover to cover of this old Book. 
 In what then does its inspiration consist? 
 
 Professor Albert C. Knudson, one of the most 
 inspiring teachers under whom it has been my priv- 
 ilege to sit, says in his The Religious Teaching of 
 the Old Testament: ‘‘In the case, then, of ‘revealed’ 
 truth what we should expect is that certain impulses 
 from the Divine Spirit would impinge upon the 
 human mind, and that these would then be worked 
 up in harmony with the mind’s own laws and trans- 
 lated into the concrete messages of the prophets. 
 In this process much that is distinctively human 
 would necessarily intermingle with the divine, and 
 there would be in the process itself nothing essen- 
 tially different from that observed in the composi- 
 tion of other books. The Bible, we should conse- 
 quently expect, would be a book or collection of books 
 to be studied just as other books are. It would not 
 be inerrant. Its origin and development would be 
 subject to the same laws as those operative in the 
 literature of any people.’’* 
 
 And such we instinctively feel must be the case. 
 Inspiration is an all-powerful, inward persuasion 
 that one is called upon to do a certain thing. Thus 
 do we explain the impassioned utterances of those 
 fiery prophets of ancient Israel, veritable incarna- 
 tions of moral power, who scourged the people for 
 their wickedness with predictions of impending 
 calamity and became the greatest apostles of right- 
 eousness the world has ever seen, ‘They were 
 
 *By permission of The Abingdon Press. 
 
THE RECORD OF MAN’S DIVINITY 165 
 
 mighty preachers, great moral reformers, who read 
 the signs of their times and sought to save their peo- 
 ple from the destruction which lives of luxury, ease 
 and social injustice on the part of the richer classes 
 so often invited. In this sense Abraham Lincoln 
 was inspired when he penned the Emancipation 
 Proclamation, the Second Inaugural, and the Get- 
 tysburg Address. Lincoln was as truly a prophet 
 of God as were those of old. And so were Sa- 
 vonarola and the poet Tennyson and Galileo and 
 Newton and a host of others. Inspiration has never 
 ceased. Every truly great work of art, literature, 
 science, or statesmanship is inspired of God. Why 
 should He ever have ceased to reveal Himself in the 
 hearts and minds of men? The creative urge which 
 He implanted in the soul of man will forever mani- 
 fest itself in works of inspiration. 
 
 But as to the inspiration of the Old Testament, 
 let me quote again from Professor Knudson: ‘‘Old 
 Testament religion is the only national religion that 
 ever survived the nation’s downfall. When other 
 nations fell they threw their gods to the moles and 
 the bats, thinking they had been overcome by supe- 
 rior deities. And this would have happened in 
 Israel had it not been for the prophets, who during 
 the period of the nation’s decline elevated Yahweh 
 (Jehovah) to the throne of universal sovereignty, 
 and declared that the destroyers of the nation were 
 simply the instruments of His wrath. This is a most 
 remarkable fact without parallel in the religious 
 history of mankind. Had monotheism originated in 
 Assyria or Egypt, it would not have been so strange, 
 
166 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 for these empires were virtually world-powers. 
 But that it should have originated among a small 
 people like the Hebrews, and have been first pro- 
 claimed among them at the very time that they were 
 on the road to political ruin, is a fact so contrary 
 to the normal operations of the human mind that 
 we can not but see in it a special manifestation of 
 the presence of the Spirit of God. There is no 
 better proof of the inspiration of the Old Testa- 
 ment than just this fact.’’ 
 
 So we may say that inspiration, shorn of its 
 supernatural implications, whether it be found in 
 the Scriptures or elsewhere, is an extraordinary 
 manifestation of the Infinite in the lives and works 
 of men. And inspiration is a hallmark of man’s 
 divinity, for only that which is divine can become 
 inspired. 
 
 THE MESSAGE OF SCIENCE 
 
 No more convincing evidence of man’s divinity 
 ean be found than that mirrored in the progressive 
 revelations of science. That they should not have 
 been welcomed as a tremendous aid to the redis- 
 covery and reinterpretation of God and the Scrip- 
 tures, which must be made in every generation, is 
 a tragic blunder of the old theology. The applica- 
 tion of scientific methods to Biblical research has 
 enabled men to catch the spirit of the times in which 
 the Scriptures were written and to understand in 
 constantly increasing measure that inextricably 
 tangled background of religious experiences out of 
 which they grew. And that is all that ‘‘Higher 
 
THE RECORD OF MAN’S DIVINITY 167 
 
 Criticism’’ means. It is simply the use of intelli- 
 gence in the study of the Book of Books. It goes 
 back of the documents and determines the chron- 
 ological order of the various books, their sources, 
 and the social, political and religious atmosphere 
 in which they took shape. It breaks down tradi- 
 tionalism and prevents the fossilization of religious 
 thought. It recognizes that religion is a living, grow- 
 ing thing, a constantly evolving product of human 
 experience, unfettered by the dead hand of the past, 
 vibrant with that creative impulse of the Divine 
 Immanence, which never ceases to manifest in every 
 form of activity, material or spiritual. Science 
 simply pleads for that broad and tolerant interpre- 
 tation of Scripture and that zeal for truth which 
 have led to such marvelous advances in every other 
 field of human knowledge. To the understanding 
 of the religious experiences of mankind, it would 
 bring an open mind and the spirit of inquiry. 
 
 Nothing else has so immeasurably enlarged our 
 conception of God and His stupendous universe as 
 have the discoveries of science. The triumphs of 
 astronomy, medicine and physical science are as 
 much a revelation of the Divine Immanence in the 
 soul of man as are the spiritual truths of sacred 
 literature. Both link man with the Infinite and for- 
 ever establish the fact of his divinity. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 Gop anp IMMORTALITY 
 
 One approaches the idea of God with hesitation. 
 It is the biggest idea that ever confronted the intel- 
 ligence of men. It is an idea too great to be grasped 
 in more than a small fraction of its infinite signifi- 
 cance. In its overwhelming vastness, it bewilders 
 thought and defies analysis. Enfolded within it lie 
 the hidden life of the universe and the interpreta- 
 tion of its meaning. The idea of God has grown 
 with the ages. The crude elemental God of the 
 savage passed into the tribal Deity, swayed by hu- 
 man passions and actuated by human motives, only 
 to be succeeded by the prophetic conception of a 
 world God of absolute justice and perfect right- 
 eousness, and finally to be supplanted by the uni- 
 versal Father of the Christian religion and the 
 Divine Immanence of scientific philosophy. This 
 ever-changing idea of God has needed reinterpre- 
 tation in each successive period of intellectual de- 
 velopment. It has grown with advancing knowl- 
 edge and risen with the evolution of the race to 
 constantly higher levels and nobler ideals. The 
 savage imagined the presence of spirits in fire and 
 water, wind and storm, the lghtning and the 
 thunder; the patriarchal tribes worshiped a re- 
 
 168 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY 169 
 
 vengeful God of wrath, remorse and repentance; the 
 prophets portrayed an austere God of moral law 
 whose sovereign sway extended to all men; some 
 of the later Psalmists had caught a vision of the 
 confident assurance and radiant joy of the God of 
 New Testament hopes; in Christ, we see the God- 
 idea flower into the conception of the All-Father 
 of infinite compassion, mercy and love; while 
 science has added the thought of a God whose life 
 ensouls the universe and whose ways of action are 
 the immutable laws of cosmic evolution. 
 
 These descriptions, however, by no means ex- 
 haust the multitudinous ways in which the idea of 
 God has found expression. Herbert Spencer, 
 materially-minded devotee of science, thought of 
 God as a fount of perpetual energy. He summar- 
 ized his idea in the following oft-quoted statement: 
 ‘¢Amid all the mysteries by which we are sur- 
 rounded, nothing is more certain than that we are 
 ever in the presence of an Infinite and Hternal 
 Energy from which all things proceed.’? To the 
 poet Wordsworth, God was ‘‘a presence that dis- 
 turbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts; a sense 
 sublime of something far more deeply interfused, 
 whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the 
 round ocean and the living air, and the blue sky, 
 and in the mind of man; a motion and a spirit that 
 impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 and rolls through all things.’? To Emerson, Chris- 
 tian philosopher, God seemed to be a sort of ‘‘Over- . 
 Soul,’’ ‘‘the wise silence, the universal beauty, the 
 Eternal One,’’ Carlyle, prophet of pessimism, sar- 
 
170 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 castically characterized the Deity of the Church as 
 ‘fan absentee God, sitting idle ever since the first 
 Sabbath, at the outside of His universe, and ‘see- 
 ing it go.’’’ To the mathematical mind of Laplace, 
 ‘‘the hypothesis of God’’ was wholly unnecessary. 
 Immanuel Kant, one of the greatest thinkers of any 
 time, said: ‘‘The conception of God involves not 
 merely a blindly operating Nature as the eternal 
 root of things, but a Supreme Being that shall be 
 the author of all things by free and understanding 
 action; and it is this conception which alone has 
 any interest for us.’’ John Fiske, eminent Ameri- 
 can historian, described the Ruler of all things as 
 ‘‘the infinite and eternal Power that is manifested 
 in every pulsation of the universe.’’ And so we 
 might continue, but let us turn to the evolution of 
 the idea of God, as it has taken shape throughout 
 the ages of man on earth. 
 
 Primitive man found himself in the midst of a 
 natural environment, often cruel and ruthless, as 
 well as sometimes genial and kind. The sense of 
 dependence upon this awfulness of Nature, which 
 he did not understand, struck its roots deep into 
 his soul. Why should the tempest sweep away his 
 rude home, or the summer showers water the earth 
 and make it bring forth food, or the sun govern the 
 coming of day and night? The only cause of things, 
 of which he had any experience, lay in his own sense 
 of will-power. He knew that he himself by his own 
 action could bring things to pass. And so as nat- 
 urally as the dawn, there was born in his mind the 
 idea that the great physical forces with which he 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY 171 
 
 found himself surrounded were animated by intelli- 
 gent beings, whom he must combat or whose favor 
 he must win. Thus many races of savages became 
 Nature-worshipers. It has always been character- 
 istic of men to worship that which they could not 
 understand. From earliest times, among savage 
 tribes the sun has been personified as an archer, 
 the clouds have been pictured as immense birds, 
 and the tempest as a voracious dragon. 
 
 And then again, another ‘‘superstition’’ has 
 played a large part in the development of man’s 
 incurably religious nature. No race of men has 
 ever been found that did not believe in ghosts. 
 Every individual is supposed to have a spirit, a 
 wraith, a sort of intangible duplication of himself, 
 which during sleep wanders in strange lands and 
 after death continues to exist. In sleep this ghost 
 converses with dead companions, or joins in the 
 hunt and chase. And not only this but beasts and 
 even inanimate objects were imagined also to pos- 
 sess ghosts, which fact accounts for many of the 
 elaborate burial customs of primitive men. With 
 such a faith, we may easily see how naturally the 
 savage passed to a belief in the god of the lightning, 
 the wind, or the fire. Growing directly out of such 
 superstitions, too, was the system of ancestor wor- 
 ship, which has been characteristic of every race 
 of primitive men. The chieftain at death did not 
 cease to watch over the fortunes of his tribe. His 
 continued favor must at all times be won with ap- 
 propriate ceremonies, or defeat and calamity would 
 be the portion of his unfaithful followers. As a 
 
172 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 result of these two marked tendencies, there grew 
 up in the primeval world a curious mixture of ances- 
 tor worship and Nature worship. 
 
 Accordingly, in those early times, we find a 
 belief in many gods. But it is one of the chief 
 evidences of man’s divinity that in the course of 
 centuries he evolved to the lofty conception of a 
 single Supreme Being. When savage tribes were 
 beaten in battle, they threw their gods to the 
 ‘“‘moles and the bats’? and adopted those of the 
 conqueror. Thus, there grew the idea of a national 
 deity, who, while at first only one among other 
 gods, was the greatest of all. But, as the world 
 knows, the crowning example of the supremacy of 
 one god over others occurred in the spiritual evolu- 
 tion of the Hebrew race. Unprecedented as it was, 
 in the midst of national calamity, the Hebrew 
 prophets, catching a larger vision of the eternal truth 
 than had ever before been revealed to mortal men, 
 elevated Jehovah to the throne of universal sov- 
 ereignty. Up to this time, the existence of other 
 gods had been freely recognized, even among the 
 leaders of the ‘‘Chosen People.’? But the intense 
 feeling of nationality prevailing among the people 
 of this gifted race, undismayed by defeat after de- 
 feat, finally triumphed in the development of a 
 religious movement which was to become the foun- 
 dation-stone of Christian civilization. When the 
 work of Jesus and St. Paul had made Jehovah the 
 Immanent Guide of the universe and the Father of 
 all mankind, there emerged for the first time in the 
 evolution of the race the transcendent conception of 
 a Supreme Ruler, shorn of every limitation. 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY 173 
 
 TWO OPPOSING IDEAS OF GOD 
 
 From the days of the early Greeks to the 
 present moment, there have been two opposing 
 ideas of God. Nature worship predominated 
 among the highly imaginative Greek people. Out 
 of this tendency to deify the physical forces of 
 Nature gradually grew the idea of a single Supreme 
 Being whose life is the all-sustaining power of the 
 universe and whose ways of action are the fixed 
 laws of physical phenomena, or happenings. All 
 Nature, all life were made ceaselessly dependent for 
 their existence upon this ever-present and im- 
 manent source of Divine Power. Theirs was the 
 idea of an ‘‘indwelling Deity.’? Out of the past 
 grew the future. Implicit in this fundamental 
 source of Divine Energy was the evolution of all 
 created things. God was not a being apart from 
 the universe, but in it every moment and at every 
 point of manifestation. Like so many other specu- 
 lative notions of this brillant race of thinkers, 
 their idea of God, as we shall see, was strikingly 
 similar to that of modern science. 
 
 But over against this conception and growing 
 out of the primitive form of ancestor worship, 
 there developed the idea of an absentee Ruler, whose 
 relation to the universe is precisely similar to that 
 of a monarch to his kingdom. According to this 
 view, the physical happenings of Nature are not 
 the ceaseless manifestations of an indwelling Deity, 
 but rather the forced effects of an outside power, 
 which operates the universe, much as an engineer 
 controls his locomotive and train, And this outside 
 
174 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 power is thought of as a man-like being in the crud- 
 est sense. It is simply the ghost idea carried back- 
 ward and magnified into a majestic Monarch, who 
 ereated a universe of blind mechanical forces and 
 set it going, after the fashion of a jeweler who makes 
 a clock and winds it up. Only occasionally does 
 this lifeless machine need attention from its Divine 
 Creator, who sits enthroned far off from His do- 
 main, attended by hierarchies of celestial beings. 
 This very human Deity was represented as subject 
 to passion and caprice, as pleased or angry, as 
 repenting of His own acts, as appeased by praise 
 and quick to wreak vengeance upon His creatures 
 for blasphemous remarks or iniquitous actions. 
 His direct action in the physical universe was 
 through the suspension of the natural laws govern- 
 ing the operation of his inert machine. But, from 
 the standpoint of its construction, this was per- 
 fectly logical, for the whole mechanism might be 
 altered at a moment’s notice to suit the capricious 
 will of an autocratic Ruler. 
 
 This latter conception portrays the God of the 
 early church. It has profoundly influenced relig- 
 ious thinking for nearly two thousand years and 
 persists even at the present day. St. Augustine 
 with his doctrine of original sin, which pictured 
 a crude man-like God cut off from all relation- 
 ship with humanity, save through the mediation 
 of the church, fastened this wholly imaginative and 
 un-Christ-like view upon the thinking of mankind 
 for many centuries beyond his time, and it even 
 to-day shackles the spiritual growth of a host of 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY 175 
 
 earnest Christians. So firmly did this grotesque 
 notion of the Deity grip the minds of men that in 
 the sculptures, mosaics and stained glass of ¢a- 
 thedrals, as well as in the illustrations of pictured 
 Bibles, God is represented as busied with the actual 
 work of creation. In one instance, He is shown, 
 needle in hand, actually sewing together skins of 
 animals to make clothes for Adam and Hive. Above 
 the tomb of Linneus, the great Swedish naturalist 
 of the eighteenth century, in the cathedral of 
 Upsala, may be seen the legend of creation carved 
 in stone. In a succession of scenes, God, in the 
 form of a human being, is represented as perform- 
 ing by His own physical exertion the various acts of 
 creation, crowning them by the making of man out 
 of a hillock of earth and woman from man’s side. 
 To hosts of people, all through the Middle Ages and 
 after, the universe was literally ‘‘the work of His 
 fingers.’? Shorn of their legendary origin, there 
 is not a particle of evidence to justify such an- 
 thropomorphic, that is man-like, conceptions of 
 God. They were born in the prolific imaginations 
 of the church fathers, who mistook the poetry of 
 Genesis for lteral fact. That hosts of people in 
 this scientific age, with an overwhelming abundance 
 of evidence to the contrary, should still cling to 
 such relics of a superstitious past, is one of the 
 outstanding marvels of all time. 
 
 This false idea, too, inbred in the religious 
 thinking of men for so many centuries, became one 
 of the chief obstacles to the acceptance by the 
 church of the spiritual implications of the discov- 
 
176 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 eries of science. Just as the reign of law extended 
 its domain, it was thought that God’s sphere of 
 influence vanished. The idea of a Majestic Mon- 
 arch, ruling the universe from the outside, had 
 gained too strong a hold upon the minds of men. 
 Had the conception of an indwelling Deity been 
 accepted by the early Church, the world would have 
 been spared those tremendous conflicts between 
 science and religion which mar the pages of theo- 
 logical history and we should not have had to wait 
 long centuries for those scientific discoveries which 
 have meant so much to the Brose ce: of mankind, 
 both spiritual and material. 
 
 THE GOD OF SCIENCE 
 
 The God of science, according to the modern 
 view, has also been the product of an evolution of 
 thought. Even as early as the time of Socrates, 
 men were fond of speculating on the idea of a Great 
 Architect, who designed the universe and all its 
 parts in accordance with a Divine Plan and then 
 so nicely adjusted and correlated the whole mech- 
 anism in its manifold workings that the outcome 
 was a benevolent order of creation. Each product 
 of organic life and each physical fact of Nature 
 came to be regarded as distinct ideas of an Intelli- 
 gent Being, who thought the universe into exist- 
 ence. The inclination of the earth’s axis to the 
 plane of its orbit at just the right angle to produce 
 the change of seasons and the hundreds of beauti- 
 ful adaptations of organisms to their respective 
 environments, as well as the numerous other pro- 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY U7 
 
 visions in the economy of Nature for the welfare 
 of living things, seemed to prove a fundamental 
 purpose back of creation. Even down to the middle 
 of the last century this view held sway in scientific 
 circles. Beyond question, too, there is a large 
 measure of truth in this conception, for unmis- 
 takably the earth does seem in its ordering to 
 disclose purpose. 
 
 But the belief that this view revealed more than 
 a glimpse of the whole truth was rudely disturbed 
 by the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species 
 and the disclosure of what seemed a ruthless 
 struggle for existence. A little reflection showed 
 that Nature is not always benevolent in her ways. 
 There are numerous examples of extreme cruelty 
 and the ill-adaptation of organisms to their en- 
 vironment. In the light of the stern realities of 
 existence, it seemed impossible that God could be 
 both benevolent and omnipotent. Gradually the 
 idea arose that in some way His power must be 
 limited. Within those limits, He had created the 
 best possible world. Still in the ideas of a supreme 
 intelligence, a divine purpose, and a large measure 
 of benevolence, this early God of scientific thinking 
 represented a distinct advance over the crude con- 
 ception of St. Augustine and his followers. 
 
 During the latter half of the nineteenth century, 
 the work of hundreds of naturalists unfolded for 
 the contemplation of men the sublime pageant of 
 organic evolution, and with it came the revolution- 
 izing idea that the universe has grown like an or- 
 ganism. The notion of a machine-like world, made 
 
178 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 and operated from without, receded into the back- 
 ground of scientific thinking. The indwelling 
 Deity of the Greek philosophers came to the fore 
 once more. A Divine Immanence was believed to 
 ensoul the universe. Creation began to be thought 
 of as a ceaseless process, rather than a product. It 
 was no longer a lifeless static thing. God, who had 
 been banished by Christian thinking to the out- 
 skirts of the universe, where He sat in solitary 
 grandeur, gloomily contemplating the dissolution of 
 His power as the encroachments of natural law 
 constantly pushed Him farther and farther into the 
 background, was reinstated as the Immanent and 
 Kternal Guide of all created things. The idea of an 
 absentee God was shattered. The universe became 
 the ceaseless expression of His thought, natural 
 laws His ways of action, and religion His life in the 
 souls of men. The uniformity of Nature became as 
 axiomatic as the mathematical truths of reason. 
 Divine caprice became a thing of the imaginative 
 past. Miracle and the consequent arbitrary inter- 
 ference with natural law became unthinkable 
 violations of the divine nature. The world became 
 a living, throbbing organism, whose growth is as 
 natural as that of the springtime violet. Implicit 
 in this life informing all creation is the personality 
 of the human spirit, which differs from Divine Per- 
 sonality only in degree. Up to the present point 
 of evolution, this personality is the flower of cre- 
 ation, and what infinite possibilities it may yet 
 unfold, only the future ages can disclose. 
 
 It is true, the first effect of this new scientific 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY 179 
 
 background was a wave of skepticism. For a time 
 it seemed to many men of science that physical 
 forces and natural laws eliminated all necessity for 
 God. While probably relatively few became con- 
 firmed atheists, many followed Huxley into the 
 camp of agnosticism, neither giving nor withhold- 
 ing assent to belief in a Supreme Being. But 
 gradually the utter inadequacy of blind chance and 
 unintelligent forces to account for a universe of 
 perfect law and order asserted itself, and the pen- 
 dulum began to swing in the opposite direction. 
 Critical thought developed the fundamental truth 
 that cosmic laws imply a Divine Lawgiver. God 
 became as necessary to science as He had been to 
 theology. 
 
 Many discoveries of science have tended to con- 
 firm this belief in an Immanent Being, whose life 
 is the soul of the universe. The law of gravitation 
 has extended its sway to the distant stars. The 
 spectroscope has disclosed in nebule and giant suns 
 the same elements that exist in the earth. Our 
 kinship has been established with the countless 
 other members of the ‘‘heavenly hosts.’’ The 
 boundless ether seems to bind the universe in cos- 
 mic unity. Our knowledge of the atoms, with their 
 miniature solar systems of revolving electrons 
 moving with the same marvelous precision as ob- 
 tains in the celestial spaces, bespeaks a reign of 
 perfect law, extending from the infinitesimally 
 small to the infinitely great. The resolution of 
 matter into vibrating points of energy comes very 
 close to establishing a fundamental relationship be- 
 
180 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 tween the material and the spiritual. Every fiber 
 of the universe appears to be aquiver with some 
 subtle form of energy, or life. The law of evolu- 
 tion, extending as we believe from the formless 
 chaos of the fire mist through nebule and solar 
 systems to the smallest of living organisms, links 
 the universe in one vast system of interrelated parts. 
 
 Blind chance can not account for the creation 
 and maintenance of such a universe. No Ruler 
 external to the system could coordinate its infin- 
 itely numerous processes in perfect harmony and 
 unceasingly supply its sustaining energy. Only 
 a God in whose life the universe exists and moves 
 and has its being is equal to so stupendous a task. 
 And such a conception is the only one that can 
 satisfy the demands of our human understanding. 
 Yet God must be more than this. He must not 
 only be the eternal source and all-sustaining cre- 
 ative power of the physical universe, but He must 
 supply with His spiritual presence our moral, re- 
 ligious and esthetic ideals. All the nobility of 
 character, all the fine qualities of the human spirit, 
 and all the wealth of love which have flowered in the 
 evolution of the soul of man must have had their 
 origin in Him, The very fact that we possess these 
 God-like qualities of heart and mind proves that 
 they are also attributes in infinitely larger degree 
 of Him in whose image we are created. A funda- 
 mental teaching of science asserts that there can 
 be no effect without an adequate cause. The per- 
 sonality of man must, then, find its counterpart in 
 that larger Personality which brought it into being. 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY 181 
 
 As Sir Oliver Lodge says, ‘‘I will not believe that 
 it is given to- man to have thoughts, nobler or 
 loftier, than the real truth of things.’’ A stream 
 can rise no higher than its source. Implicit within 
 the God of life must be all the riches of human 
 experience. Otherwise, they never could have 
 found expression. That is the clear teaching of 
 science. The God of science is more than the ‘‘In- 
 finite and Eternal Energy’’ of Herbert Spencer. 
 Not only must we find in Him the origin of nebule 
 and solar systems, physical forces and natural laws, 
 but also in overflowing measure the divinity of the 
 human spirit. 
 
 And science would be false to its own basic prin- 
 ciples and to its own interpretation of natural 
 phenomena, did it deny the existence of God alto- 
 gether. The crass materialism which engulfed the 
 scientific thinking of a half-century ago has largely 
 passed. We see about us a universe of perfect law 
 and order. It is an intelligible universe. We can 
 unravel many of its mysteries. We can discover 
 its laws of action, and even put them down in 
 mathematical formule of absolute precision. We 
 can harness its forces to serve our needs. Its hid- 
 den secrets yield their meanings to our persistent 
 search for truth. Its minutest units become to the 
 scientific understanding marvelous systems of re- 
 volving electrons. When we sweep its heavens with 
 our telescope, we exclaim with Kepler, ‘‘O God, I 
 think Thy thoughts after Thee.’? And the universe 
 is reasonable. It is a rational universe. It is 
 amenable to human understanding. It is never ca- 
 
182 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 pricious. It always acts in the same way. It is 
 always dependable and law-abiding. Given in the 
 laboratory or elsewhere a particular set of condi- 
 tions, and the result is invariably the same. To a 
 certain question, regardless of when or where it 
 may be asked, Nature never fails to give the same 
 undeviating answer. And so science has come to 
 live by faith. It has faith in the integrity of the 
 universe. Out of this faith has grown the funda- 
 mental assumption, that whatever is necessary to 
 the mind’s understanding of natural phenomena is 
 necessary to the phenomena themselves. 
 
 But what has this to do with our belief in God? 
 Simply this: that an understandable universe of law 
 and order, a universe that is amenable to our finite 
 intelligence, must have back of it a Divine Intelli- 
 gence, the accomplishment of whose Purposes 
 manifests itself in creation and whose ways of 
 thinking are the immutable laws which govern the 
 occurrence of natural phenomena. An intelligible 
 universe could never proceed from a non-intelligent 
 source. Without Divine Intelligence as the basis 
 and never-ceasing source of creation, this world 
 would be an insoluble riddle. We should never be 
 able to find any meaning in it. And the very fact 
 that we do find meaning is proof eternal that God 
 exists. 
 
 Suppose we were to cut each separate word 
 from this page, stir them all up, and put them to- 
 gether hit-and-miss fashion, the meaning would be 
 utterly gone. There would be words, but no 
 thought. This universe is a thought-creation, and 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY 183 
 
 so is every other creation. The sculptor sees the 
 statue in the unhewn block of marble, before he 
 strikes a blow. Every painting is a_ thought- 
 creation transferred to canvas. Poetry and music 
 are divine expressions of the human soul. Inven- 
 tions are masterpieces of creative thought. Let us 
 take a complicated machine. The purpose of every 
 wheel and lever, of every part to the minutest de- 
 tail, existed in thought before it was materialized in 
 bronze or steel. Otherwise, we should find no 
 meaning in it. It would be out of harmony with 
 the fundamental principles of mechanics. Because 
 no thought was back of it, it would be an eternal 
 enigma. And so with the universe. It is a product 
 of divine thought. 
 
 And then again, the scientist assumes an ether, 
 because it is incomprehensible that light and heat 
 can traverse the immeasurable distances of space 
 without something in which to travel. But we shall 
 never get any closer to proving its existence than 
 just this thought necessity. The stuff is wholly 
 elusive, completely intangible. It does not respond 
 to any of our senses, and yet few scientists doubt 
 its existence. We can not explain the observed 
 facts of physical phenomena without assuming that 
 it does. No person ever saw an atom or a molecule. 
 Yet these units of chemical and physical action are 
 as real as the cobble stones beneath our feet. We 
 can not understand the behavior of matter without 
 calling them into ‘‘being.’’ Astronomers could not 
 explain the deviations in the path of the planet 
 Uranus without supposing the presence of a there- 
 
184 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 tofore unknown planet having a certain definite 
 orbit about the sun and a certain mass. Its 
 discovery became a mathematical certainty, and 
 was achieved almost immediately upon the comple- 
 tion by Leverrier of the necessary calculation. Cer- 
 tain fossil bones brought to Cuvier demanded for 
 their explanation a peculiar type of prehistoric 
 animal, and an extinct species of the elephant be- 
 came a fact of the geologic past. 
 
 Whatever the facts of scientific observation ré- 
 quire for their explanation become essential parts 
 of the universe. That is the rule of science, and 
 we may apply it with equal force to the problem 
 of God. Without Him, the origin of our universe 
 and its perpetual maintenance become unintelligible 
 mysteries. Even if the human soul did not demand 
 His existence for the satisfaction of its divine 
 aspirations, science would make Him a rational 
 necessity. 
 
 No, science does not dethroné God. Let us blot 
 from our minds the thought that scientific dis- 
 covery has made necessary the substitution of blind 
 force or natural laws for a Supreme Being. God 
 is just as essential to the true scientist as He is to 
 the theologian, But in place of the grotesque con- 
 ception of an enlarged man-like Deity, ruling the 
 universe like an absentee landlord, science puts 
 the Divine Immanence of an Infinite Intelligence, 
 that always and everywhere manifests itself in 
 progressive creation. The God of theology is at 
 absolute variance with the divine revelations of the 
 searchers after the hidden truths of the universe. 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY 185 
 
 To such a Deity, the apostles of science can not sub- 
 scribe. Only a Divine Being who embodies in 
 transcendent degree every manifestation of the 
 universe, material or spiritual, here or at the re- 
 motest point of the celestial spaces, can satisfy 
 alike the demands of reason and the esthetic ideals 
 of the human spirit. 
 
 IMMORTALITY 
 
 Closely associated with the idea of God is that 
 of immortality. These are the two biggest ideas 
 that,ever engaged the thought of men. The whence 
 and the whither of life,—these are the eternal 
 mysteries which philosophers in every age have 
 sought to fathom. As to the whence of life, may 
 there not be truth in the lines of Wordsworth: 
 
 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: 
 The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting 
 
 And cometh from afar: 
 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 
 And not in utter nakedness, 
 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
 From God, who is our home. 
 
 And as to the whither of life, we instinctively 
 feel the truth expressed in the following lines: 
 
 Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: 
 
 Thou madest man, he knows not why, 
 He thinks he was not made to die; 
 
 And thou hast made him: thou art just. 
 
 Let us trace for a moment the development of 
 man’s belief in an immortal soul, The origin of 
 
186 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 this belief takes us back to the primitivé times of 
 our prehistoric ancestry. Its beginning was a 
 lowly one, but for just that reason the steady evolu- 
 tion of this fundamental idea into the beautiful 
 concept of modern Christian faith is one of the most 
 notable evidences of man’s divinity. Quite likely 
 belief in a soul and its continued existence after 
 death arose from the phenomena of dreams. As 
 the mind of the savage wandered in sleep taking 
 him possibly to distant lands and other hunting- 
 grounds, there grew the idea of another self, a 
 ghost, a spirit, which was able to leave the physical 
 body, and, free as air, to roam the earth at will. 
 And then again, when the slain chieftain or de- 
 parted friends seemed to appear in dreams to 
 converse with him, the spirits of the dead, to his 
 simple faith, continued to exist, possessed of all the 
 faculties belonging to them here. Fear of death, 
 too, was doubtless an important factor in the origin 
 of this faith. This realm of shadows, the abode of 
 departed spirits, was variously pictured. The 
 Peruvians and Mexicans placed it in the sun; the 
 American Indians imagined a happy hunting- 
 ground; the Polynesians regarded the moon as the 
 home of the dead; the Finns and Australians 
 pictured a distant island; while the Egyptians, 
 Greeks, Romans and Hebrews located the land of 
 shades in a subterranean cavern, a dismal place 
 utterly devoid of the joy of living. 
 
 The Hebrew religion, in its beginning, had no 
 certain hope of immortality. The following passage 
 from Ecclesiastes states the early conviction of the 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY | 187 
 
 race in which faith in life eternal was to reach 
 its most glorious conception: ‘‘A living dog is 
 better than a dead lion. For the living know that 
 they shall die: but the dead know not anything, 
 neither have they any more a reward; for the 
 memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and 
 their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; 
 neither have they any more a portion for ever in 
 anything that is done under the sun.’’ And again: 
 ‘‘Wor that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth 
 beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one 
 dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one 
 breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a 
 beast; for all is vanity.’’ 
 
 Sheol, the shadowy dwelling-place of the He- 
 brew dead, was variously described as a land of 
 ‘“destruction,’’ ‘‘forgetfulness,’’ or ‘‘silence.’’? But 
 all the world knows how this idea of the life after 
 death gradually evolved through the later psalmists 
 and the New Testament writers into the radiant 
 visions of early Christian hopes. 
 
 IMMORTALITY AND THE TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE 
 
 Do the teachings of science have any bearing 
 upon the ages-old belief in the immortality of the 
 human spirit? Do they shed any new light upon 
 a question which forever returns to perplex the 
 minds of men? Of course science, in its present 
 state of development, can neither prove nor dis- 
 prove the future existence of the soul. It can not 
 even produce evidence to support the hypothesis 
 that man has a soul. In the realms of the dead, 
 
188 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 the instruments of science are useless. Still, the 
 achievements of modern science have disclosed so 
 many mysteries of the universe that they would 
 seem to promise hope of one day drawing aside 
 the veil which separates the living from the dead. 
 Indeed, the scientific study of personality is reveal- 
 ing the existence of vast realms of unexplored 
 possibilities lying beyond the frontiers of human 
 consciousness. Telépathy, clairvoyance, hypno- 
 tism, the mysterious powers of the subconscious 
 mind,—these are enchanting kingdoms but awaiting 
 the conquest of science. They hint at hidden re- 
 sources of the soul, of illimitable extent and 
 immense significance. We instinctively feel that 
 the race stands upon the threshold of a new era, 
 a fresh departure in its evolution, of which the 
 psychical development of men may be the chief 
 achievement. But let us see what clues the dis- 
 coveries of science offer, even to-day, for a better 
 understanding of the problem of eternal life. 
 
 So firmly do the facts of science grip the mind 
 that one often comes to believe only in the realities 
 of material existence. So illusive and intangible 
 have the properties of the spirit seemed in com- 
 parison that the existence of a spiritual realm has 
 been regarded largely as a matter of speculation. 
 But how intangible likewise have the realities of 
 the scientific world become, the discoveries of the 
 last half-century have made exceedingly apparent. 
 Formerly we had notions of hard indestructible 
 entities called atoms. Now we have replaced these 
 chemical units with points of energy, known as 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY 189 
 
 electrons and moving with tremendous velocities in 
 orbits about centers of positive electrification. The 
 energy manifest in X-Rays is able to penetrate 
 opaque matter. Intangible ether waves girdle the 
 earth with the voice of music and intelligible 
 thought. The vast reservoirs of sub-atomic energy, 
 as revealed in the disruption of radium atoms, have 
 created visions of inexhaustible reserves of natural 
 power. Radioactivity, too, has brought the dream 
 of the alchemist to pass. The older facts of gravi- 
 tation, magnetism, electricity, chemical affinity and 
 the all-pervading ether of space, utterly intangible 
 in every instance, have shattered past the possi- 
 bility of reconstruction the material world of earlier 
 science. The earth beneath our feet and the air 
 we breathe have resolved themselves into forms of 
 energy as immaterial as the spirits of departed 
 friends. To the challenge, ‘‘Show me a single atom 
 which has ever been changed from its eternal form 
 or any proof whatever of a world of immaterial 
 being,’’ science has an answer overflowing with an 
 abundance of the most positive evidence. ‘The 
 hard matter-of-fact realities of the physical uni- 
 verse of yesterday are gone. All is elusive. 
 
 We are entirely ignorant of the real nature of 
 the physical forces of the universe. What are 
 gravitation and chemical affinity, magnetism and 
 electricity, heat and light? Have we any more 
 knowledge, in the last analysis, of these physical 
 realities than we have of the immaterial human 
 spirit? What could be more mysterious about the 
 existence of spirit than about that of the ether? 
 
190 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 The ether is absolutely immaterial. We can not 
 perceive it with any of the senses. Its properties, 
 entirely deduced by processes of reasoning, seem, to 
 the uninitiated at least, even more fantastical than 
 do those of spirit. Just imagine an individual, a 
 spirit if you please, consisting of ether. He would 
 be invisible, utterly beyond apprehension by any 
 of the physical senses, capable of moving with the 
 velocity of light, immune alike to the intense heat 
 of the sun and the absolute cold of interplanetary 
 space, and altogether ghost-like in characteristics. 
 Is the supersensual world of ether and electrons and 
 subatomic energy any more real than the realm of 
 spirit? Is the idea of a human soul, that which 
 gives to personality its only reality, any more 
 marvelous or improbable than the modern concep- 
 tion of a planetary atom and its wealth of invisible 
 forces? In speaking of this new knowledge, Sir 
 William Crookes said: ‘‘We have actually touched 
 the borderland where matter and energy seem to 
 merge into one another—the shadowy realm be- 
 tween the known and the unknown. I venture to 
 think the greatest scientific problems of the future 
 will find their solution in this borderland, and even 
 beyond. Here, it seems to me, lie ultimate realities, 
 subtle, far-reaching, wonderful.’’ 
 
 What ultimate reality could be more significant 
 than the existence and nature of the human soul? 
 Do not the scientific discoveries of the past and 
 the seemingly illimitable possibilities of this border- 
 land of ultimate knowledge give ground for faith 
 that, somewhere, somehow in the economy of this 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY 191 
 
 vast universe, there is provision for the immortality 
 of the spirit? 
 
 But science offers a far more significant an- 
 alogy for belief in the immortality of the soul. One 
 of its fundamental laws is that of the Conservation 
 of Energy: energy can neither be created nor de- 
 stroyed but it can be changed from one form to 
 another. The energy of falling water turns the 
 armature of a dynamo and is converted into elec- 
 tricity, which in turn produces heat, light and 
 motion. If all the energy in each transformation is 
 measured, including that which is wasted, the sum 
 total will be found to equal the quantity contained 
 in the original energy of the falling water. It is 
 neither more nor less. The sum total of energy 
 in the universe is constant. Now does it not seem 
 equally reasonable to suppose that there is also 
 a conservation of spiritual energy? Why should 
 this other form of energy, which seems to be the 
 most vital thing in the universe, an energy without 
 which life itself would be impossible, suffer anni- 
 hilation any more than the physical energy which 
 it uses? If heat, light and electricity are indes- 
 tructible, may it not be that personality, the form 
 of energy through which all others is manifest, is 
 equally beyond the reach of destruction? Indeed, 
 it would be most unreasonable to assume other- 
 wise. The annihilation of spiritual energy would 
 constitute a violation of the order of the universe 
 so gross as to be utterly unthinkable. Whether or 
 not personal identity, that is the individuality of 
 the human spirit, persists, science can not say. The 
 
192 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 whole trend of scientific knowledge supports the 
 hypothesis of survival, but further than that it 
 can not go. 
 
 Let us approach this problem from another 
 point of the scientific compass. Does not the un- 
 doubted fact of evolution have any significance for 
 belief in the persistence of the human spirit? Even 
 Darwin said, ‘‘It is an intolerable thought that man 
 and all other sentient beings are doomed to com- 
 plete annihilation, after such long-continued slow 
 progress.’’ Why should a progress of infinite 
 magnitude, beginning in the fire mist and continu- 
 ing through nebule and solar systems to the 
 production of a habitable planet, flower in organic 
 life and evolve through countless ages of pain and 
 toil into the personality of the human spirit, only 
 to undergo complete dissolution when the spirit 
 passes from the physical realm? Does such an end 
 seem consistent with the divine harmony of the 
 universe? Surely there is some more worth-while 
 goal for the actors in this drama of eternity. Out 
 of the strife and struggle, turmoil and agony, de- 
 feat and victory of the infinite past there must be 
 some gains to be preserved. Why should not life 
 with its amazing powers of persistence run on for- 
 ever? Has man come thus far only to be destined 
 to go no farther? Should human personality, 
 bought at such frightful costs, in a moment cease 
 to be? The mind recoils from such a possibility. 
 For what purpose do men live for one small frac- 
 fion of a cosmic moment, if annihilation awaits 
 them at its close? No, the evolution of life can 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY 193 
 
 never end any more than can the transformation of 
 physical energy. The reasonableness of the uni- 
 verse, as we know it, makes impossible any other 
 conclusion. Immortality is as much a rational 
 necessity for the destiny of creation as God is for 
 its beginning. 
 
 Deep in the soul of man is implanted the germ 
 of immortality. It was present in the cave man. 
 Its roots have sunk deeper and deeper with the 
 lapse of time. All the learning of the ages has not 
 been able to uproot it. Skepticism avails nothing 
 against it. Although a man may reject all religion, 
 he still clings to the hope of immortality. Its grip 
 can not be shaken off. It has been of tremendous 
 influence in shaping the destiny of civilization. 
 Without it life would lose its meaning and death 
 become the blind alley of human endeavor. It is 
 contrary to all the teachings of science that a 
 latent factor of such vast import to the evolution 
 of physical or spiritual phenomena should be but 
 a fiction of the imagination. It does not spring 
 from nothing and proceed toward a purposeless 
 goal. It has some counterpart in reality commen- 
 surate with its immense significance to the realm 
 in which it operates. If for no other reason, we 
 might assert with perfect confidence our belief in 
 immortality. 
 
 So far as observation goes, there are no aspira- 
 tions of the human spirit which do not find their 
 means of satisfaction. The desire for justice, the 
 love of beauty, poetry and music,—these have come 
 to fruition in systems of jurisprudence, works of 
 
194 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 art, the literature of every age and the compositions 
 of the masters. Men wished to lighten the drudgery 
 of human toil, and the principles of mechanics 
 awaited their application. They sought increased 
 power for the performance of the world’s work, and 
 steam became the burden-bearer of the race. At 
 length there emerged a desire to annihilate space, 
 and the telegraph, the telephone and radio have met 
 the need. Certain venturesome spirits audaciously 
 believed in the possibility of soaring like the birds, 
 and the airplane sprang into being. The desire to 
 alleviate human suffering has flowered in the mir- 
 acles of preventive medicine and modern surgery. 
 From time immemorial men have longed for a fuller 
 knowledge of the heavens, and the telescope and the 
 spectroscope have made them as an open book. In 
 imagination they pictured the miniature worlds of 
 the infinitesimally small, and to-day a wealth of 
 evidence reveals the truth. Columbus had a vision 
 of an unknown continent, and he found it beyond the 
 seas. Along a thousand paths of scientific dis- 
 covery, the searchers after the hidden mysteries of 
 the universe have justified the supreme faith of the 
 human spirit in the existence of the unseen. Do 
 not these conquests of faith give abundant ground 
 for the conviction that the yearning of the soul for 
 life everlasting will not find itself unfulfilled? 
 The progress and spirit of scientific discovery 
 are utterly opposed to the philosophy of modern 
 pessimism which teaches that ‘‘man is a mere acci- 
 dent,’’ ‘‘immortality is a sheer illusion,’’ ‘‘there is 
 practically no evidence for the existence of God,’’ 
 
GOD AND IMMORTALITY 195 
 
 ‘religion is primarily a defense mecnanism,’’ ‘‘the 
 freedom of the will has been knocked into a cocked 
 hat,’’ ‘‘such things as the soul, consciousness, God 
 and immortality are merely mistakes of the older 
 psychology,’’ and that life is possibly but ‘‘a fleet- 
 ing moment of music, warmth and color between two 
 eternities of silence.’’ Scientific revelations in 
 their broad aspects give no justification for such 
 gloomy views of the universe and the destiny of the 
 race. 
 
 The spiritual driving power of civilization still 
 remains unimpaired. Faith in God and immortality, 
 reinforced by three centuries of scientific achieve- 
 ment, is to-day the most precious legacy of the past 
 and the eternal hope of the future. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 ScIENCE AND THE CHURCH 
 
 Way should men ever have thought that the 
 dissemination of knowledge and the progressive un- 
 veiling of the illimitable mysteries of this vast uni- 
 verse of matter, energy and life would diminish the 
 glory of the Infinite or weaken Christian faith? 
 How can a fuller understanding of the wide areas 
 of the unexplored realities of existence restrict the 
 spiritual evolution of mankind? Why should we 
 ephemeral creatures of but a fraction of a cosmic 
 moment start with the utterly false assumption that 
 there is no mystery about creation? What right 
 has any body of finite beings to conclude that there 
 is nothing more to be known than what was imagined 
 by infant peoples in the ages of ignorance and super- 
 stition? Does any one really believe that any man- 
 made literature, however inspired its authors may 
 have been, contains more than the minutest frag- 
 ment of what ultimately may be unfolded? Has 
 knowledge become static? Is it even yet a crime to 
 face the future with an inquiring mind? Shall any 
 of us to-day place ourselves in the same class with 
 those who feared to look through Galileo’s telescope, 
 lest they might perceive unwelcome truth? Is a 
 religious faith founded upon such a basis a stable 
 
 196 
 
SCIENCE AND THE CHURCH 197 
 
 structure? Is it fit for the twenticth century and 
 after? Should it be a chief function of the apostles 
 of the living truth to combat the spread of learning? 
 Does an interpretation of the Scriptures and of 
 Nature which places a premium upon ignorance and 
 capitalizes so far as possible the credulity of men 
 sound the key-note of forward-looking minds? Why 
 should we not move onward into the open spaces 
 of a wider truth and climb upward to the sunlit 
 heights of a larger understanding? Do we still 
 cling to the belief of the early church that it is 
 wicked to pry into God’s secrets? Does the Infinite 
 really require the guardian care of finite beings? 
 Are we not yet big enough to know how utterly 
 futile are the puny attempts of any group of men, 
 however zealous they may be for their conception 
 of the right, to stay the triumphal progress of God’s 
 eternal truth? Will men never realize that ‘‘the 
 truth is mighty and it will prevail’’? Let us then 
 open wide the floodgates of the great ocean of 
 knowledge as rapidly as the finite powers of human 
 ingenuity can do it. Let us forever cease to oppose 
 that clearer vision, that deeper insight, that larger 
 understanding that make both for righteousness and 
 the progressive evolution of mankind. 
 
 And to the time-honored question, ‘*‘Why bother 
 about such matters?’’ the answer is that the acqui- 
 sition of knowledge concerning the universe of 
 which we are a part and the development of the 
 human intellect are possibly among the supreme 
 objects of the evolution of the race. Had all men 
 persisted in their comfortable grooves of mental 
 
198 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 security, there never would have been a Roger 
 Bacon, a Galileo, a Martin Luther, a Newton, a 
 Faraday, a Shakespeare, or an Abraham Lincoln. 
 Because such men had the courage to loose the fet- 
 ters which bound them to the traditional past and 
 to reject the false doctrine that the pursuit of truth 
 is an illegitimate calling of mortal men, the world 
 has moved out of the dark shadows of the Middle 
 Ages and into the Renaissance of learning and the 
 bright morning of scientific achievement. The men- 
 tal status of the race can not stand still. We of 
 to-day must determine whether or not a fossiliza- 
 tion of intellectual and spiritual ideals shall not 
 only arrest the tide of human progress, but, for the 
 time being, turn it backward in its course. 
 
 THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE CHURCH 
 
 The church, as she has done often before in her 
 history, stands at the cross-roads. Shall that large 
 and growing element within her folds which wel- 
 comes with joy every fresh revelation of God’s 
 truth, in whatever form it may come, achieve the 
 leadership of the spiritual forces of mankind, or 
 shall those worshipers of a sacred past, whose faces 
 are perpetually turned away from the bright sun- 
 light of advancing knowledge, gain a temporary 
 victory for reaction, even as they did in the days of 
 Galileo? That is the vital question which confronts 
 the church to-day and upon whose answer depends 
 much of the future of Christian civilization. We 
 ean not evade it. The issue has been raised, and the 
 answer must be forthcoming. Shall it be dictated 
 
SCIENCE AND THE CHURCH 199 
 
 by enlightened Christian leadership, or shall that 
 group of misguided but tremendously earnest souls 
 whose appreciation of science and the intellectual 
 achievements of modern scholarship touches close 
 to the zero mark be permitted to shackle in large 
 measure the progress of spiritual development for 
 a generation yet to come? It is the same centuries- 
 old question which has confronted the church ever 
 since the Fathers of the Christian Faith, noble men, 
 bred in the minds of ignorant and docile people the 
 utterly false conviction that God, once and for all, 
 revealed in the sacred Scriptures the whole truth 
 about our universe. 
 
 Why can not the church make use of truth in 
 any form? Does it not all emanate from God? Is 
 it not inconceivable that He would allow men to come 
 into possession of knowledge which would interfere 
 with their spiritual welfare? If the findings of 
 Christian scholarship have traced to their legendary 
 origins many of the poetic stories of Genesis, can it 
 possibly further the cause of Christ to insist upon 
 them as literal truth, or to make dogmatic belief 
 in them essential to the supposed salvation of the 
 soul? Have not too many such essential beliefs 
 passed by the boards to give pause to such insistence 
 to-day? If the undoubted facts of scientific inves- 
 tigation have demonstrated the truth of evolution 
 and traced man’s ancestry to a lowly origin, must 
 we not accept them as fresh revelations of God’s 
 universe? Must we not recognize that belief in the 
 divinely dictated authorship of the Biblical account 
 was never more than an assumption? Can we not 
 
200 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 welcome these discoveries as giving us a larger 
 knowledge of God’s ways of working,—a glimpse, 
 as it were, into His workshop? Why not accept this 
 new accession of divine insight and turn it to the 
 glory of Him whose life is the soul of the universe? 
 Are Christian theologians any more sure to-day of 
 the falsity of evolution than they were three hun- 
 dred years ago of the fallacy of the Copernican 
 theory of the heavens? Taking a lesson from the 
 chapter of its experience in the ‘‘near antiquity’’ of 
 the seventeenth century, should not the church wel- 
 come the opportunity to escape a repetition of its 
 tragic blunder in opposing the classic revelations of 
 the new astronomy? Just as the beauties of the 
 new heavens and their awe-inspiring mysteries have 
 now become one of the chief glories of the God of 
 Christian theology, may it not be that ere long the 
 church as a unit will place the majestic pageant of 
 evolution, sweeping as it does across the infinite 
 reaches of time, alongside of the revelations of 
 Copernicus and Galileo, as one of the most notable 
 evidences of a divine order in the universe? And, 
 when we speak of the church, we must freely and 
 gladly concede that large numbers of its leaders are 
 among the most devoted apostles of truth, from 
 whatever source, that have ever graced the ranks 
 of learning. 
 
 A most timely utterance of The Outlook, in com- 
 menting just now upon the visit to the United States 
 of Dean Inge, of St. Paul’s Cathedral, says: ‘‘ What 
 is significant about Dean Inge’s visit is not so much 
 his views about the relative value of Italian Ameri- 
 
SCIENCE AND THE CHURCH 201 
 
 cans and Americans of native stock, not even his com- 
 ments upon the beauty of our sky-scrapers or of our 
 New England villages; what is really significant is 
 the message that he gives as from an Kinglishman 
 of conservative mind socially who thinks in terms 
 of religious liberalism. The real message that we 
 ought to and need to hold fast to in this country is 
 that which has been reported again and again—that 
 there is and can be no conflict between two kinds of 
 truth, that religion and science are not essentially at 
 swords’ points. The real quarrel is between science 
 and theological theories. When the dean says that 
 Christ could not have meant His followers to shut 
 their eyes to any truth, he brings a message which 
 is needed more in so-called liberal America than it 
 is in so-called conservative England. If the church 
 is not to identify itself with theories doomed to 
 become as antiquated as astrology and alchemy, it 
 must adjust its theories of religion to such new 
 knowledge as has become as well established as the 
 law of gravitation. . . . Dean Inge’s visit to this 
 country has done a great service by spreading 
 through the press by means of the very pestiferous 
 reporters whom he wishes would let him alone this 
 elementary truth that in the universe we have a 
 revelation of God which the scientist is studying and 
 understanding, and that there is no authority in 
 religion except that which ultimately speaks through 
 the faith of the individual.”’ 
 
 Sooner or later the church as a whole must ac- 
 cept this broad view. There is no authority any- 
 where to constrain a man to believe anything which 
 
202 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 his own interpretation of God and Nature does not 
 lead him to accept. Attempts to suppress the truth, 
 or even what is regarded as untruth, will never 
 avail anything. History is full of such tragic blun- 
 ders. Has the church as a whole not yet learned 
 the lesson? And was there ever a more fallacious 
 view than that the cause of religion can be served 
 by clinging to outworn beliefs which have been 
 shown to be utterly false? Is the church blind to 
 the handwriting on the wall? Are there any in 
 authority who can not see that a generation that is 
 rapidly coming to believe in the triumphant truth 
 of evolution can no longer be nurtured on the myth- 
 ical Story of Creation found in Genesis, especially 
 when it is well known that the origin of that story 
 has been traced to pagan literature? If a scien- 
 tifically trained people rejects the idea of miracles, 
 which violate the natural order of the universe and 
 which originated in an age of superstition and igno- 
 rance when belief in ‘‘signs and wonders”’ was rife 
 among men, would it not be the part of wisdom 
 not to stress that idea? More light, not less, wider 
 vistas for the soul, larger knowledge, deeper insight, 
 clearer understanding,—these are the vitalizing in- 
 fluences which the church must make her own, if she 
 is not to lose her grip on the minds of men. 
 
 Do empty pews and the wide-spread religious 
 unrest, which is sweeping the country, teach noth- 
 ing? If the everlasting truths of religion need re- 
 interpretation in a new age to meet new view- 
 points and larger knowledge, let the church seize 
 the opportunity gladly and march in the vanguard 
 
SCIENCE AND THE CHURCH 203 
 
 of the spiritual renaissance. As Doctor Fosdick 
 says in his wonderfully inspiring book, The Modern 
 Use of the Bible, ‘If there are fresh things to learn 
 concerning the physical universe, let us have them, 
 that we may find a deeper meaning when we say, 
 ‘The heavens declare the glory of God.’ If there 
 are new ways of approaching men’s minds, new 
 methods of argument and apologetic, let us have 
 them and not fight like fools with bows and arrows 
 at Verdun, when the One we are fighting for is so 
 worthy of the best that we can do. If there are new 
 powers disclosed by science, let us have them and 
 put them at the disposal of the Lord of life to make 
 our service more efficient! All that we know at the 
 service of the Highest that we know—that is the 
 ideal!’’* 
 
 And then again does not the church realize that 
 it is losing its vital contact with young minds when 
 it clings to traditional religious view-points which 
 have been utterly discredited by the teachings of 
 modern science? How infantile in the extreme and 
 how contrary to the lesson written large in the 
 wrecks of theological dogma in the past to attempt 
 to prevent the spread of the truth! Here is the 
 tremendous opportunity of the church. Let her 
 show that she is abreast of the times. Let her take 
 the lead in appropriating to the service of God each 
 fresh revelation of divine truth. Let her prophets, 
 like those of old, catch the vision of a living God, 
 who has never ceased to be the Immanent Source 
 and Guide of the universe, always unfolding in ever- 
 
 *The Macmillan Company, 1924. 
 
904 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 increasing measure the meaning and purpose of the 
 ways of life and creation. Let her break away from 
 the paralyzing traditionalism of a fossilized past. 
 Only by showing in unmistakable terms that her 
 apostles believe in a God who works in the living 
 present, here and now, and by methods never dif- 
 fering essentially in the past from those in opera- 
 tion to-day, can she retain her hold upon the youth 
 of this and other lands. The irrefutable teachings 
 of science have made too indelible an impression 
 upon the minds of the rising generation. It is idle 
 to shut one’s eyes to them and utterly futile to 
 attempt to stay the mighty onward sweep of their 
 conquest. Why should any portion of the church 
 leadership persist in remaining blind to the over- 
 shadowing significance of these discoveries of 
 science? Why should it not welcome them whole- 
 heartedly as a fresh revelation in modern times of 
 the Divine Immanence? Only thus can the church 
 deserve and win the respect and loyal confidence of 
 those young people who are to be the intellectual 
 leaders of the coming generation. 
 
 The church did not hesitate to appropriate the 
 music of Bach, Beethoven and Handel, the painting 
 of Cimabue, Raphael and Michelangelo, and the new 
 Gothic architecture for the service of religion. The 
 discoveries of science are no less an unfolding of 
 the Divine. They are equally worthy of God- 
 service. If the church would gain that new acces- 
 sion of spiritual power of which she stands so 
 desperately in need, let her seize upon this new 
 knowledge, as a drowning man would a life-buoy. 
 
SCIENCE AND THE CHURCH 205 
 
 Its rejection means ultimate suicide for the church 
 in her present form, for no organization can endure 
 which opposes the progress of truth. The church 
 can not continue to deny the validity of the rapidly 
 growing wealth of scientific knowledge and survive. 
 The immense spiritual significance of these epoch- 
 making researches must be freely accepted, or 
 nothing will be left to theology but the empty husks 
 of a worn-out traditionalism. Again we say, the 
 church stands at the cross-roads. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 A review of the past often affords the surest key 
 to the solution of present difficulties. We have 
 already indicated in other pages much of the his- 
 torical attitude of the church with regard to the 
 discoveries of physical science, but a review at this 
 point may be helpful. 
 
 The early fathers of the church cherished the 
 most profound belief in the literal truth of the 
 Scriptures. In their view, this sacred literature 
 revealed all that was to be known regarding the 
 universe and the origin of life. The Bible was not 
 only a spiritual guide, but a text-book of geography 
 and science as well. Every word was either dic- 
 tated by God, or directly inspired of Him. There 
 was not an error within its covers, and there was no 
 possibility of discovering any truth which its pages 
 did not reveal. It was the duty of all men to accept 
 with unquestioning obedience its teachings and their 
 interpretation by the church as final in all matters, 
 both spiritual and material, In the words of St. 
 
206 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 Augustine, ‘‘Nothing is to be accepted save on the 
 authority of Scripture, since greater is that au- 
 thority than all the powers of the human mind.’’ 
 And strange as it may seem, in the face of a host 
 of the most revolutionizing discoveries of an ever- 
 growing science to the contrary, that was the atti- 
 tude of the church as a whole, both Protestant and 
 Catholic, almost down to the twentieth century. 
 And it is the official policy of a large proportion of 
 Christian leaders even at the present moment. 
 
 And then, too, the belief of the early church, as 
 derived from the New Testament, regarded the end 
 of the world as near at hand. With the final judg- 
 ment rapidly approaching, the saving of souls was 
 the only consideration worthy of men. All else was 
 worse than folly. This withering attitude of the 
 church arrested the normal development of science 
 for more than fifteen hundred years. Pope Greg- 
 ory VII, in the eleventh century, declared all 
 physical sciences to be ‘‘absurdities’’ and ‘‘fool- 
 eries.’’? In the twelfth century, St. Thomas Aquinas 
 used his powerful influence to bring science, which 
 was even then making a beginning of the experi- 
 mental method, entirely under theological control. 
 The Scriptures, too, with theological sanction were 
 made the basis for the practise of magic. In the 
 following century, Roger Bacon, the first great 
 apostle of experimental science, was imprisoned for 
 fourteen years by the ecclesiastical authorities and 
 otherwise relentlessly persecuted because he had 
 sought to give a rational, rather than a super- 
 natural, explanation of natural phenomena. Be- 
 
SCIENCE AND THE CHURCH 207 
 
 eause for the first time he showed a correct 
 understanding of the nature and causes of the 
 rainbow, which according to the legend in Genesis 
 was a miraculous ‘‘sign’’ of the Holy Spirit, he was 
 charged with being in league with Satan. This un- 
 enlightened attitude on the part of the church, born 
 of ignorance and unreasoning religious zeal, stayed 
 the development of science and deprived the world 
 for centuries of discoveries which would have been 
 of untold benefit to mankind. The ecclesiastics of 
 England displayed marked opposition to the Royal 
 Society and later showed their dislike for the Associ- 
 ation for the Advancement of Science. The church 
 authorities, both Protestant and Catholic, for a long 
 period discouraged instruction in chemistry and 
 physics, and, when this was no longer possible, 
 sought to bring it under the domination of theo- 
 logical view-points. These same powers did their 
 utmost to crush scientific research, to which the 
 world owes immeasurable benefits, in its infancy, 
 and afterward discouraged it as dangerous. Theo- 
 logians gave their support to the false science of 
 alchemy and accepted the interference of the devil 
 in physical phenomena. Against Robert Boyle, the 
 father of modern chemistry, the church was par- 
 ticularly severe. But at last, just at the close of the 
 eighteenth century, Black, Bergmann, Cavendish, 
 Priestley, Scheele and Lavoisier ushered in the dawn 
 of a new day in the physical sciences. The church 
 had done all in her power to stifle their growth, but 
 after the exhaustion of every resource had found 
 herself impotent to stay the irresistible progress of 
 truth. 
 
208 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 In another chapter, we have traced the crude 
 notions regarding the geography and shape of the 
 earth, promulgated for centuries by the church, as 
 well as her imaginative structure of the heavens. 
 We must remember, too, that these theories were 
 all based upon a literal interpretation of Scriptural 
 texts, and orthodox belief in them made a basis of 
 Christian faith. We have also noted how such great 
 apostles of science as Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, 
 Kepler and Newton were denounced as foes of God, 
 because their epoch-making discoveries had drawn 
 aside the veil and permitted men to gain a larger 
 vision and a fuller knowledge of the eternal mys- 
 teries of the universe. We have called attention to 
 the social ostracism of Sir Charles Lyell by English 
 churchmen, because his geological researches upset 
 the sacred chronology of Hebrew Scripture, a 
 chronology based upon the most monstrous assump- 
 tion that ever engaged the thought of men. The 
 ludicrous attempts of the church to explain the fos- 
 sil record of the rocks afford a capital example of 
 the utter unreliability of theology in the field of 
 science. The long refusal to accept the findings in 
 the ancient cave-dwellings of Europe and the results 
 of archeological research as valid evidence of the 
 vast antiquity of man illustrates the traditional hos- 
 tility of the church to the reception of new knowl- 
 edge. A supernatural origin was attributed to 
 comets and thunderbolts and for centuries the belief 
 that they are direct manifestations of divine wrath 
 was preached with the utmost vigor. The mad orgy 
 of witchcraft and the large number of executions, 
 
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SCIFNCE AND THE CHURCH 209 
 
 justified in the name of God by the text, ‘‘Thou 
 shalt not suffer a witch to live,’’ constitutes a hid- 
 eous and ineffaceable blot upon the theological 
 interpretation of Scripture, as applied to one im- 
 portant branch of science. The opposition of the 
 church to the early researches in medicine and 
 anatomy and her inhumane treatment of the feeble- 
 minded, as being possessed of devils, make pathetic 
 chapters in the scientific blunderings of Christian 
 theology. The fierce warfare against Darwin and 
 evolution a half-century ago and the present flare- 
 up over it in this twentieth century of intellectual 
 enlightenment show how little this wretched record 
 of the church in the domain of science has taught 
 to certain portions of her leadership. These well- 
 meaning, but misguided ‘‘friendly enemies’’ of 
 to-day stand where the early church fathers stood, 
 with this important exception, that they live in the 
 most enlightened era of Christian civilization, in- 
 stead of in an age of scientific ignorance and 
 superstitious wonder. That such harkings-back to 
 a literal belief in the legendary science of pre- 
 historic civilizations should prevail in any currents 
 of American thought now is one of the most astound- 
 ing facts of modern times. 
 
 Let us confidently hope, however, that this un- 
 enlightened stand of a powerful faction of the 
 theological forces against the teaching of evolution 
 will soon spend itself and that it will mark the last 
 pitched battle between the adherents of two essen- 
 tially related forms of universal truth. 
 
 With a complete record of defeat to their credit 
 
210 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 at every point of the controversy for three hundred 
 years, may we not ask why the present-day oppo- 
 nents of evolution are any more sure of their ground 
 than were their forefathers on a score of other 
 battle-fields? Does not the experience of the past 
 teach them with an overwhelming emphasis that the 
 Scriptures are utterly fallacious as a guide to scien- 
 tific truth? Was not the Scriptural warrant for the 
 validity of the ancient view of the heavens just as 
 strong as is that for the legendary Story of Crea- 
 tion? Have not the researches of Darwin and a host 
 of others shattered this latter view as completely as 
 did the revelations of Galileo’s telescope bring to 
 ruin the celestial spheres and the solid firmament 
 of heaven? Is it not tragically futile to pit against 
 the findings of Christian scholarship and the wealth 
 of scientific knowledge the crude imaginings of in- 
 fant peoples almost before the dawn of civilization? 
 To say that God told those early writers what to 
 record is, as we have seen, an assumption which has 
 been proved to be utterly false. This assertion may 
 find currency among the uninformed for a gener- 
 ation yet, but its deliberate perpetuation by those 
 who should know the truth is a crime against the 
 very cause which it is sought to serve. To maintain 
 that, even though the literal teachings of Genesis 
 about creation may be false, to teach the truth will 
 weaken Christian faith refutes itself. Christian 
 faith has survived the substitution of the truth of 
 science for the literal interpretation of Scripture so 
 many times that it is perfectly safe to assume that 
 it will continue to do so throughout all future time. 
 
SCIENCE AND THE CHURCH OT 
 
 THE MODERN VIEW 
 
 Shailer Mathews, in his book, The Faith of 
 Modernism, has well put the modern view of science 
 and the Bible in the following words: ‘‘There is no 
 static religion or standardized formula in the Bible. 
 Tn that fact is one of the most significant of the 
 Modernist points of view, viz., that the true atti- 
 tude toward God and the true experience of His 
 presence are possible and discernible in the midst 
 of imperfect and even mistaken scientific and other 
 views. The author of Genesis may declare that the 
 sun and stars were created after the creation of the 
 earth and plant life, a conception which our knowl- 
 edge of astronomy shows is incorrect. But this 
 error does not prevent our sharing in the author’s 
 faith that in the shaping of the universe, God was 
 present. So, too, it is only something to be ex- 
 pected when we find in the religious experiences of 
 men who lived before the siege of Troy conceptions 
 of God which to our Christian morality seem un- 
 worthy. Such conceptions are, however, no bar to 
 the discovery that with all the human infirmities 
 attributed to Him, the Jahweh of the Book of 
 Judges possessed qualities which had only to be 
 expanded as men’s experience expanded, to give the 
 righteous monotheism of the prophets. Belief in 
 the providence of God can be expressed in poetry, 
 folk-tale and legend just as truly as in literal state- 
 ment.’’* 
 
 Kiven in the third century, Origen, one of the 
 most influential of the early church fathers, had 
 sensed the modern view-point. In speaking of the 
 
 *The Macmillan Company, 1925, 
 
919 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 absurdity of a literal interpretation of the first 
 chapters of Genesis, he said: 
 
 ‘‘Hor who that has understanding will suppose 
 that the first, and second, and third day, and the 
 evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and 
 moon, and stars? and that the first day was, as it 
 were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as 
 to suppose that God, after the manner of a husband- 
 man, planted a paradise in Hden, toward the east, 
 and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, 
 so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth 
 obtained life?”’ 
 
 This and much more in the Old Testament 
 seemed impossible of belief to a great Christian 
 scholar as long as seventeen hundred years ago. 
 And even in the literal interpretation of the New 
 Testament, he found serious impossibilities, con- 
 tradictions and discrepancies. 
 
 Doctor Fosdick, in his The Modern Use of the 
 Bible, has well asked: ‘‘To be a Bible Christian 
 must we think, as some seem to suppose, that a fish 
 swallowed a man, or that the sun and moon stood 
 still at Joshua’s command, or that God sent she- 
 bears to eat up children who were rude to a prophet, 
 or that saints long dead arose and appeared in 
 Jerusalem when our Lord was crucified? Is that 
 what it means to be a Bible Christian?’’* 
 
 No, to that ever-growing host of devout wor- 
 shipers whose faith in the conclusions of science will 
 not permit them to entertain such ideas, handed 
 down from an age of ‘‘signs and wonders,’’ it may 
 be said with perfect confidence that our present 
 
 *The Maemillan Company, 1924. 
 
SCIENCE AND THE CHURCH 913 
 
 knowledge of the universe in the light of modern 
 research and discovery not only makes these events 
 utterly impossible of belief, but, had they actually 
 happened, a violation of the nature of God himself. 
 The overshadowing truth of the message of science 
 to the church is the fact of the uniformity of the 
 universe and the invariable precision of God’s ways 
 of working. He did not set aside His laws in ancient 
 times any more than He does to-day. The modern 
 Christian is no longer compelled to do violence to 
 his conception of the eternal fitness of things by 
 an unnatural belief in supposed happenings which 
 we know originated in the minds of a highly imagi- 
 native people, long centuries before the knowledge 
 of a universe of law and order had become a per- 
 manent possession of mankind. 
 
 And if you ask, ‘‘What does this modern view 
 leave to us of the Bible?’”’ the answer is ‘‘Hivery- 
 thing of any permanent value.’’ The deeps of the 
 human spirit are the same yesterday, to-day and 
 forever. The Bible is the world’s classic record of 
 religious experience. It unfolds the most notable ex- 
 ample of spiritual evolution. Old ideas of God and 
 sin and justice and worship, adapted only to the 
 childhood of the race, are gradually outgrown. We 
 see them replaced by new and loftier conceptions. 
 In this Book of Books, we feel the religious life of a 
 great people throb with the energy of constantly en- 
 larging religious convictions. Religion is no dead 
 static thing. It glows brighter and brighter with 
 each fresh revelation of the Divine Immanence. The 
 crude notions growing out of the literal interpreta- 
 
214 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 tion of ideas belonging to another age are slipping 
 into the background. But the lasting experiences 
 of men—their loves and hates, griefs and strug- 
 gles, defeats and victories, hopes and fears, temp- 
 tations and desires—are still in the Bible. The 
 stories of these experiences are as applicable to-day 
 as they were three thousand years ago. And these, 
 the teachings of science can never touch. The spir- 
 itual appeal of the Bible is as strong as ever. And 
 this appeal is absolutely independent of any ad- 
 herence to the outgrown symbols of a by-gone era of 
 world affairs. A knowledge of science has relieved 
 religious teaching of much excess baggage, and has 
 given it immeasurably nobler conceptions of God 
 and the universe, but the fundamental spiritual 
 values of the race, implanted in the evolving soul 
 of man and finding expression in the sacred liter- 
 ature of the Bible, will stand eternally in their own 
 right. They are as indestructible as the law of 
 gravitation or the primal energy from which our 
 solar system sprang. This crystallization in the 
 Bible of these heights and deeps of human experi- 
 ence can never be taken away. With such a price- 
 less legacy, the church may well relinquish its 
 formal adherence to the outgrown symbols of the 
 transcendent conception of the spirituality of the 
 universe. 
 
 The tragedy of theological history has been the 
 failure of the church to realize that creation has 
 never ceased and that the discoveries of science, 
 instead of weakening the prestige of God, are the 
 most marvelous manifestations of the Divine Im- 
 
SCIENCE AND THE CHURCH 215 
 
 manence that have ever been vouchsafed to the 
 knowledge of men. The apostles of the church and 
 the leaders of scientific research are the foremost 
 instruments for the revelation of the eternal truth 
 of the universe. Co-workers with God, it is a 
 travesty upon the divine progress of the race that 
 they should ever have become opponents in the 
 ages-old search for a better understanding of life 
 and its environment. That large numbers of the 
 most eminent leaders of the church are welcoming 
 whole-heartedly the work of science and each new 
 accession to the world’s knowledge is the most 
 hopeful sign on the horizon to-day. When men, par- 
 ticularly their leaders, come to realize what a vast 
 ocean of unexplored knowledge still remains, we 
 shall have an end forevermore to the inglorious 
 attempts to stifle the spirit of discovery and dam 
 up the springs of eternal truth. And when that 
 turning-point in the history of mankind shall come, 
 we shall find science and the church working shoul- 
 der to shoulder in the cause of Him whose life is the 
 soul of the universe. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 MIRACLES 
 
 Let it be stated at the very outset of this dis- 
 cussion that the permanence of Christian faith is in 
 no danger from the triumph of the truth. If for 
 nineteen hundred years and more men have been 
 clinging to a false belief in the occurrence of natural 
 events whose causation would have constituted a 
 direct violation of the divine nature, the world will 
 lose nothing of value, if it allows these empty husks 
 of an outgrown spiritual symbolism to slip into the 
 realm of historic fallacies. Indeed, it will be im- 
 measurably the gainer. A false belief is excess 
 baggage. It contains nothing vital. It is an en- 
 cumbrance to spiritual progress, and never more 
 so than in this twentieth century of rapidly widen- 
 ing areas of human knowledge. Let us be very 
 frank. So long as the race is here, spiritual prog- 
 ress will never cease, but any organization which 
 deliberately shuts its eyes to the truth and seeks to 
 establish its future upon the fossilized ignorance of 
 the distant past is doomed utterly. If the church 
 would not sacrifice her leadership in this present 
 age of scientific and historic research, she must 
 square her creeds with that rapidly accumulating 
 body of facts with which men in ever increasing 
 
 216 
 
MIRACLES 217 
 
 numbers are becoming conversant. It is not a ques- 
 tion of what her leaders wish to believe, but of what 
 they must believe. The researches of Christian 
 scholarship have shown the extreme improbability 
 of the occurrence of miracles in the commonly ac- 
 cepted meaning of the term, that is, a violation of 
 the divine order of natural procedure. The dis- 
 coveries of science have demonstrated their utter 
 impossibility in a normal world. These are the in- 
 escapable facts which must be faced. It will avail 
 nothing against them to brand scientists as ‘‘dis- 
 honest scoundrels . . . burrowing in the ground 
 and stealing away the faith of your children.’’ 
 Christian faith rests upon a basis far more sub- 
 stantial than the long-cherished beliefs of ignorance. 
 If it did not, it would have perished long ago. 
 First, let us get the historic setting in which the 
 belief in miracles arose. To understand it we must 
 go back to the prescientific ages, which extended 
 from the earliest times to Galileo and after. In 
 those centuries of unenlightened thinking, anything 
 could happen. People believed in signs and won- 
 ders. They were fond of the supernatural. There 
 was nothing incomprehensible about it. A miracle 
 was simply an extraordinary method of divine ac- 
 tion. The earth and its phenomena were plastic to 
 the touch of the Almighty. The universe was a 
 creature of His creation, which he directed from the 
 outside. He could do anything He pleased with it. 
 Most events happened in a usual way, but at any 
 moment He could choose to act in an unusual way. 
 Such an occurrence presented no difficulty to the 
 
218 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 thought of those ages, because natural laws were 
 unknown. No laws were broken, because none had 
 been established. Any natural event whose ex- 
 planation was unknown was a miracle. I[ivents 
 which admit of the simplest explanations now were 
 then regarded as miraculous. Even to-day, in the 
 uncivilized portions of the globe, the natives believe 
 in a host of miracles. The locomotive, automobile, 
 or airplane, when seem for the first time, is a miracle 
 and a thing for worship. The people of Bible times 
 had not advanced much beyond this state of prim- 
 itive superstition. A great buoyancy filled the air. 
 They lived in daily expectation of marvelous hap- 
 penings. With God anything was possible. In fact, 
 if He could not perform miracles, He was unworthy 
 of their worship. Miracles were common in the 
 religions of all the early civilizations. They are not 
 peculiar to the sacred literature of the Hebrews, and 
 many of them are practically identical with those 
 told about other gods and prophets. That was an 
 age of miracles as much as this is an age of science. 
 Belief in them grew in that fertile soil of credulity 
 and ignorance as readily as flowers blossom in a 
 springtime meadow. The only mysterious thing now 
 about this quite natural age of superstitious won- 
 ders is the grip which it still has upon religious 
 thought in this day of wide-spread scientific knowl- 
 edge. Because these events are recorded in the 
 Bible, they are still believed by many, but, when 
 found in almost precisely similar form in the sacred 
 writings of other peoples, they are branded as 
 legendary. 
 
MIRACLES 219 
 
 Before we take up the Biblical miracles in the 
 light of historical research and scientific discovery, 
 let us consider a few from the large numbers of 
 those reported in more recent times. It may not be 
 generally known that the age of ‘‘miracle working’’ 
 did not cease until the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century. It continued until the discoveries of mod- 
 ern science inaugurated a new way of looking at 
 Nature and caused the faith in such improbable 
 occurrences to disappear. 
 
 The case of St. Francis Xavier, as reported by 
 Andrew D. White in his notable work, A History of 
 the Warfare of Science and Theology in Christen- 
 dom, 1s typical of the manner in which belief in 
 miracles was fostered during the early centuries of 
 the church and down to the beginning of the modern 
 era. Xavier was a Spanish nobleman of the six- 
 teenth century, who embraced the plans of Ignatius 
 Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, and 
 became a missionary of vast influence in the Far 
 Hast, dying in 1552 on the desert island of San 
 Chan. Now it is a most significant circumstance 
 that, although Xavier himself has left in his own 
 writings a detailed record of his many years of 
 missionary work, we find in them no event which 
 could possibly be interpreted as a miracle. He made 
 no claim to miraculous power, and none of his 
 brother missionaries in their numerous letters, 
 written and published during Xavier’s lifetime and 
 still in existence, make any mention of miracles. 
 Yet his biographies are full of alleged supernatural 
 events wrought by him, and the farther away we get 
 
220 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 from the time in which he lived the more luxuriant 
 is this legendary growth. Although Xavier himself 
 has told us with what difficulty he mastered the 
 Japanese language, he is credited with the ‘‘gift of 
 tongues,’’ even speaking with such fluency from the 
 very first that the natives thought him one of their 
 own race. In these imaginative writings, scores of 
 miracles stand to the credit of St. Francis. He is 
 said to have raised the dead, to have restored sight 
 to the blind, to have caused an earthquake to punish 
 a blasphemous town, to have made sea-water fresh 
 by the sign of the cross, to have been lifted bodily 
 from the earth and transfigured before the multi- 
 tude, and to have called down fire from heaven to 
 destroy a wicked village. Most singular of all, on 
 one of his voyages he caused a crab to restore a 
 crucifix which had been lost overboard. On the 
 basis of ten such miracles, selected from the long 
 list of pious stories invented by his industrious ad- 
 mirers, Xavier was cannonized in 1622 by Pope 
 Gregory XV. 
 
 ‘‘Did the people actually believe such tales?”’ 
 you ask. Yes. There was nothing improbable 
 about such happenings at that quite recent period 
 in the history of mankind. They were the order of 
 the day. People had always been taught to believe 
 in miracles, and they had to occur. The extraor- 
 dinary circumstance would have been their failure 
 to materialize. This tendency to give a miraculous 
 twist even to the most ordinary events had become 
 almost a public disease among the leaders of those 
 docile peoples. But let us not fail to note that there 
 
MIRACLES 221 
 
 is not a shred of evidence to support one of these 
 numerous miracles attributed to Xavier. They 
 grew as all such stories have grown, long after the 
 event, in the fertile imaginations of well-intentioned 
 apostles of religious ideals. Often they have be- 
 come venerable with age and so deeply rooted in 
 faith and creed that to many their extirpation seems 
 a sacrilege. 
 
 The foregoing is only one of the scores of exam- 
 ples which might be cited in the long development 
 of miracle-stories. According to a legend of the 
 thirteenth century, Albert the Great created an 
 artificial man, possessed of life and such marvelous 
 reasoning powers that St. Thomas, unable to answer 
 him, was compelled to break him in pieces with his 
 staff. Miracles without limit were ascribed to the 
 power of St. Thomas a Becket. In time pools and 
 sacred shrines became the abiding-places of miracu- 
 lous potencies. At the tomb of St. Thomas, leprosy 
 was cured, amputated limbs were restored, a boy 
 seven days dead was brought to life, and a slaugh- 
 tered cow, whose skin had already been sent to the 
 tannery, was returned whole to the owners. Al- 
 though Mahommet in his life-time disclaimed any 
 miraculous power whatever, his followers had soon 
 made him responsible for numerous supernatural 
 events. The most astonishing miracles have been 
 attributed to all sorts of historic personages. Thé 
 theological atmosphere of Christian. Hurope was 
 saturated with them for centuries. Scores of saints 
 were officially credited with raising the dead, all 
 manner of healing, the gift of tongues, miraculous 
 
222, THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 disappearance and reappearance, instantaneous 
 transfer from one place to another, and even trans- 
 figuration. And this right down to the beginning 
 of the modern era. 
 
 It is exceedingly significant to observe, however, 
 that these inventions seldom, if ever, occur in first- 
 hand documents. It is only with the lapse of time 
 that they appear. The closer we get to the actual 
 characters about whom they center, the fewer 
 ‘‘sions and wonders’’ do we find. A very important 
 bearing has this fact, too, upon the Biblical miracles. 
 
 But this golden age of miracle working was 
 destined to receive a rude awakening. In the sev- 
 enteenth century came the epoch-making discoveries 
 of Galileo and the shattering of the theological 
 heavens. Through the mists of ancient superstition 
 a reign of law began to emerge. Men were experi- 
 menting along many avenues of scientific inquiry. 
 The modern search for truth had begun its irresist- 
 ible progress. Many forms of natural phenomena 
 were receiving rational explanations. In this same 
 century Newton demonstrated the law of gravitation 
 and brought to light a reign of order among the 
 members of the solarsystem. Realm after realm was 
 redeemed from the capricious irregularity of de- 
 moniacal agents and celestial beings. The light of 
 truth was at last dispelling the dark shadows of 
 prehistoric ignorance. A reformation was taking 
 place in the thought of men. Geographical explora- 
 tions were widening mental horizons. Ancient 
 fallacies were receding into the background. In 
 such an atmosphere belief in miracles could no 
 
MIRACLES 923 
 
 longer survive. They became the flotsam and jet- 
 sam of the crude uncritical ages that had gone 
 before. 
 
 The first effect of this new knowledge was to 
 shatter belief in the miracles of contemporary 
 saints. The Protestant Church, however, at first 
 refused to deny their occurrence, but attributed 
 them to the devil. But gradually this belief became 
 too heavy a burden, and it had to go. Next doubt 
 was cast upon any of the miracles credited to the 
 Christian era, and the boundary-line of the miracu- 
 lous was carried backward to the time of the 
 apostles. Why it should not have been extended to 
 the beginning of recorded history, there is no 
 assignable reason, save the reluctance of the church 
 to relinquish what seemed to be its most direct evi- 
 dence of divine origin. She could not see that the 
 great spiritual truths of the Bible and the teachings 
 of Christ, secure as they are for all time, need no 
 false support from a belief in the occurrence of in- 
 credible natural events. But be that as it is, 
 Christians came to believe only in the miracles of 
 Bible times, which they sought to exalt into a posi- 
 tion of unassailable sanctity. Still the conquests of 
 science did not cease, and people came to wonder 
 why the miracles of the Bible rest upon any more 
 secure foundation than did those of the early church 
 or the ones recorded in the sacred literatures of 
 other peoples. That question mark, too, has not yet 
 ceased to cast its shadow across the path of spir- 
 itual progress. 
 
D4 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GoD 
 
 THE BIBLE MIRACLES 
 
 The Bible miracles were subject to the same laws 
 of growth as any others. They sprang from the 
 same sort of soil. Belief in them flourished and 
 grew strong in the same atmosphere of credulity 
 and superstition. Their presence in the Bible is no 
 warrant for their authenticity. They in no way 
 differ from the wonder stories of contemporary 
 civilizations. In many instances they are practically 
 identical. Their origin, too, is not to be found in 
 first-hand records. 
 
 The miracles of the Old Testament are only such 
 as we should expect from the times in which that 
 literature arose. These writings are not history as 
 we understand modern history. Much is legendary, 
 oral traditions handed down for decades and often 
 centuries before being committed to written form. 
 Neither does any scholar of standing to-day believe 
 that they were dictated by God. They grew like 
 any other literature, and by a process of natural 
 selection came to be regarded as divine. The mir- 
 acles which these writings record are on a par with 
 those of any other literature or any other time. Be- 
 lief in their occurrence is no longer necessary to 
 faith in the divine origin of the Scriptures. 
 
 Wherever we have the original records of the 
 prophets, they are noteworthy for an almost entire 
 absence of miracle. Hosea, Amos, Ezekiel and Jere- 
 miah make no mention of the supernatural. But in 
 the stories of Hlijah and Elisha, who left no original 
 records of their lives, we find ourselves in the realm 
 of the miraculous. Just as in later centuries, mir- 
 
MIRACLES Ya 
 
 acle stories grew about the personage of Xavier, so 
 did they about these first great representatives of 
 the prophetic line. We are familiar with such 
 marvels as: the raising of a dead man by contact 
 with the bones of the prophet Elisha, the floating 
 of an axe-head in defiance of the law of buoyancy, 
 the smiting of the Jordan with the prophet’s cloak 
 and the parting of the waters, the slaying of sol- 
 diers by fire from heaven, the ravens which brought 
 food to Elijah, the unfailing jar of meal and cruse 
 of oil, the reviving of the widow’s son, the curing 
 of the leprosy of Naaman, the Syrian army smitten 
 with blindness at the call of Elisha, the she-bears 
 sent to eat up mocking children, and the ascension 
 of Klijah in a chariot of fire. Others are also told 
 about these undoubted historic figures of Old-Testa- 
 ment tradition, but they only serve to paint in more 
 vivid colors the unscientific setting of that age of 
 superstitious wonder. 
 
 Again when we examine the legendary literature 
 of earlier periods, we find an abundance of the 
 miraculous. As if by magic, plagues appear and 
 disappear in Egypt, the sun and moon stand still 
 at the command of Joshua, water flows from the 
 smitten rock, the walls of Jericho fall down, Lot’s 
 wife is changed to a pillar of salt, and the waters of 
 the Jordan part while the people pass. Wherever 
 we find first-hand records of Biblical history, how- 
 ever, miracles almost disappear, or they are few 
 and simple in character. A notable illustration is to 
 be found in the entire absence of the supernatural 
 from the reign of David. 
 
226 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 The miracles of the Old Testament are a product 
 of their times. No sacred literature could have 
 arisen in that unscientific age without them. They 
 cast no doubt upon the great spiritual truths of the 
 Scriptures. Those precious heritages from the 
 early evolution of man’s divinity are secure for all 
 time. They lose none of their value from being 
 shorn of the miraculous. Because the rapidly ac- 
 cumulating funds of knowledge in every field of 
 inquiry have made necessary a reinterpretation of 
 the Bible, no one need despair. Religious thought 
 must keep step with the intellectual progress of its 
 age. No one would have the world go back to the 
 crude forms of ancestor and Nature worship of 
 primitive men. No more should we to-day wish to 
 substitute the outgrown spiritual symbols of an age 
 of ignorance for the living truth of fresh revela- 
 tions. The truths of the Bible are in no danger of 
 being obscured. The Almighty is abundantly able 
 to conserve the moral gains of the past and to care 
 for the spiritual welfare of the future. 
 
 The miracles of the New Testament cluster about 
 the transcendent figure of Christ. It is unfor- 
 tunate that we have no first-hand documents giving 
 the record of His life and ministry. None of the 
 books of the New Testament were written until a 
 considerable period after His death. We can not be 
 sure that the sayings of Christ, as recorded in them, 
 are His exact words. They are of course substan- 
 tially so, for the art of oral transmission was much 
 more highly developed then than now. Many of His 
 sayings doubtless were not preserved, thus con- 
 
MIRACLES O27 
 
 stituting an irreparable loss to succeeding ages. 
 The same atmosphere of credulity and superstition 
 which enveloped the preceding and following cen- 
 turies was also typically characteristic of the period 
 of Christ. If miracles were not found in the sacred 
 literature that records His ministry, it would be 
 a cause for inquiry. Nevertheless, the authenticity 
 of these miracles must be subject to the same criti- 
 cal interpretation as those of any other similar 
 epoch. 
 
 It is interesting to note in the New Testament 
 the same inveterate tendency to veer toward the 
 miraculous, the farther we recede from the original 
 sources of information. In the Epistles of St. Paul, 
 the oldest of this collection of writings, no miracles 
 are recorded. Paul probably wrote within fifteen 
 or twenty years after the crucifixion. Had the 
 miracles of Christ become well established at that 
 time, he surely would have mentioned them specif- 
 ically. His silence is immensely significant. 
 
 The authorship of Mark, now conceded by 
 scholars to be the oldest of the Gospels, was not 
 earlier than 65 A. D., a generation after the death 
 of Christ. Matthew and Luke appeared shortly 
 thereafter, while John, an almost mystical book, 
 was probably not written until the second century. 
 With these facts in mind, there should be no illu- 
 sions as to the traditional origin of these sacred 
 books. Jesus himself wrote nothing. After His 
 death, the recollections of His life were so vivid in 
 the minds of the apostles that they needed no writ- 
 ten record of His work, Firmly believing in His 
 
228 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 early return, they could see no necessity for one. 
 But He did not return, and, based upon the preach- 
 ing of His followers, oral traditions inevitably 
 sprang up. Characteristically of the age, stories, 
 exaggerations and legends doubtless intermingled 
 with these historic traditions. From the works of 
 Christian writers of the first three centuries, which 
 fortunately have been preserved to us, we gain 
 glimpses of documents which probably preceded 
 the Gospels as we have them to-day and served as a 
 common source of information for those who com- 
 piled them. Probably a majority of the foremost 
 Biblical scholars now rejects the authorship of the 
 Gospel of St. John by the disciple of that name. 
 Its late date seems to preclude that possibility. It 
 must be granted at the outset that nowhere in the 
 four Gospels are we dealing with first-hand infor- 
 mation. 
 
 It is not our purpose here to consider in detail 
 all of the miracles attributed to Christ. Two or 
 three of them, together with emphasis upon the 
 wide divergence prevailing among the different 
 narratives of the same events, will be sufficient. 
 
 Let us take first the virgin birth. Nowhere in 
 the sayings of Jesus does He make any direct ref- 
 erence to His parentage or birth. If there had 
 been anything miraculous about them, Christ would 
 certainly have known the facts, and would have 
 made some allusion to such extraordinary circum- 
 stances concerning His personage. Had He been 
 aware of His absolutely unique relation to God, His 
 silence becomes unintelligible. Assuming that Jesus’ 
 
MIRACLES 229 
 
 own words are the best authority concerning himself, 
 the teaching of Matthew that He had no human 
 father can not be regarded as historical. Paul does 
 not even mention it. Apparently it formed no im- 
 portant part of the Christ tradition at the time 
 he wrote. Neither is mention of it to be found in 
 Mark, the first of the Gospels. Not only does the 
 Gospel of St. John fail to allude to it, but reference 
 is specifically made to Jesus as the son of Joseph. 
 That the story of the Nativity, as found in Luke, 
 is largely poetical, rather than historical, seems to 
 be self-evident. The accounts in Matthew and Luke 
 are neither consistent with the words of Jesus nor 
 with the oldest Gospel. The prophecy in Isaiah of 
 the virgin birth of a Messiah has been shown by 
 Christian scholarship to have been a mistransla- 
 tion of the original Hebrew. The word ‘‘virgin’’ 
 should be ‘‘young woman.’’ 
 
 When we consider, too, that the virgin birth is 
 not peculiar to the Messiah but that it was cus- 
 tomary in that age to attribute a miraculous origin 
 to great leaders, it becomes clear that the compilers 
 of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke ascribed to 
 Christ only what the people according to their 
 understanding had come to believe must be true 
 concerning so marvelous a Teacher of men. There 
 was no conscious deception. Those writers believed 
 they were telling the truth, but they were not writ- 
 ing history. In the light of present knowledge, 
 Christian faith no longer obligates us to believe in 
 the occurrence of an event which outrages the 
 divine order of Nature and for which there is not 
 a particle of historical support. 
 
230 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 No one in passing from Mark through Matthew 
 and Luke to John can fail to observe both the in- 
 crease in the importance attached to miracles and 
 the growing note of exaggeration which runs 
 through them. In John, the authorship of which is 
 farthest removed from the Christ period, we find 
 Jesus turning water into wine, restoring sight to 
 a man born blind, and raising Lazarus after he had 
 been four days in the-tomb. The miracle-working 
 of the New Testament Gospels runs strictly true 
 to form. 
 
 Passing over the wondrous works of Jesus’ 
 ministry, let us come to the transcendent miracle of 
 His resurrection. No saying of Jesus warrants the 
 conclusion that he expected a bodily resurrection. 
 Paul, who was the first to write and who mentions 
 five ‘‘appearances,’’ nowhere claims to have seen 
 Christ in bodily form. Indeed, he refers to one of 
 these appearances as a ‘‘heavenly vision.’’ Paul 
 was a mystic, and there is no reason for believing 
 that he ever intended to interpret his overwhelming 
 conviction of the repeated personal manifestations 
 of Christ’s presence as other than mystical visions. 
 He has nothing to say of the empty tomb. In the 
 Gospel narratives of the resurrection, the utmost 
 confusion prevails. There is no sure tradition as 
 to who found the tomb open, or why any one had 
 come thither. No unity correlates the various 
 statements as to whom and where he reappeared. 
 The freedom exhibited in the treatment of the same 
 incident leads to the irresistible conclusion that 
 these writers were not recording history but legen- 
 
MIRACLES ok 
 
 dary traditions which had matured during a 
 generation of unparalleled spiritual unrest. It is 
 impossible to believe that with a reanimated body 
 Jesus both appeared and did not appear in the 
 vicinity of Jerusalem and in Galilee, that He passed 
 through closed doors, that He ate fish, that He 
 offered His hands and feet to the touch of doubting 
 Thomas, and that He finally took flight through 
 the absolute cold of the interstellar spaces. Such 
 a faith is but a crystallization of the crudest sort 
 of spiritual materialism. The world, let us hope, 
 has outgrown it. No longer should it be necessary 
 to strengthen our faith in the reality of the Risen 
 Spirit of Christ by a false belief in empty tombs 
 and a reanimated physical body. If the simple 
 souls of that day found it impossible to clothe their 
 supreme realization of his Unseen Presence in 
 other than material symbols, that is no reason why 
 the defenders of Christianity now should not see 
 things with a clearer vision. 
 
 Let us make it perfectly plain, however, that, 
 while history and science must withhold their as- 
 sent from a belief in the literal truth of the 
 resurrection miracle, they can never account for 
 the transformation of that little timid band of dis- 
 ciples into a bold and triumphant power without 
 assuming in its utmost reality the Christ Vision 
 in their hearts and souls. And therein lies the 
 miracle of Christ,—in that ‘‘heavenly vision’’ and 
 in nineteen centuries of Christian civilization. In 
 His transcendent life in the souls of men, we see the 
 culminating manifestation of the divine personality. 
 
932 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth was the highest Incarnation of 
 the Divine Immanence that the race has known, 
 and His Spirit has never since ceased to be the 
 guiding power of human striving. The Supreme 
 Divinity of Christ and the immeasurable influence 
 of His example are altogether above and beyond 
 any petty ecclesiastical dogmas regarding the 
 virgin birth, the bodily resurrection, or the truth 
 or falsity of his recorded miracles. Were they not, 
 He would be now only a figure in history, but one 
 among other religious teachers. In this scientific 
 age, to make belief in the literal truth of those 
 oriental legends a formal condition of the soul’s 
 salvation and requisite to entry into the Christian 
 ministry is a circumstance which ‘‘passeth under- 
 standing.’’ Why seek, ever so. slightly, to 
 substitute the husks of tradition for the living, 
 throbbing truth of spiritual realities? There is 
 miracle enough in the ever-expanding life of Christ 
 in the souls of men to make more than unnecessary 
 the compulsion of a strict adherence to formal 
 creeds unsuited to the present age. Along that 
 way lie ecclesiastical suicide, the strangulation of 
 religious forces, and the temporary staying of the 
 tides of spiritual progress. But eventually the truth 
 will win, and the miracle of the Christ-life, working 
 in the lives of men, will become so apparent that 
 all may understand. When we have climbed to the 
 sunlit heights of a larger understanding and have 
 caught a broader vision of the eternal truth, we 
 shall know that the teachings and example of Christ 
 have lost nothing of value from having been re- 
 
MIRACLES 233 
 
 lieved of their burden of the supernatural. A 
 deeper and vastly more significant spiritual faith 
 awaits the coming of that auspicious time. 
 
 MIRACLES AND SCIENCE 
 
 The historic meaning of miracles is at total 
 variance with the fundamental truths of scientific 
 discovery. If by miracle we mean a violation of 
 the divine order of natural procedure, a capricious 
 irregularity in the occurrence of physical phenom- 
 ena, then science must reject the hypothesis, both 
 as highly improbable and utterly unverifiable. 
 There is no reason for assuming that the same 
 unalterable natural laws which we find in force 
 to-day were not in unrestricted operation in Pales- 
 tine nineteen hundred years ago. In the brief 
 moment of cosmic time which has since intervened, 
 there can have been no change in the divine methods 
 of running the universe. We know that miracles 
 do not occur now. They could not have occurred 
 then. There is no reason for believing that God 
 acts differently in one historical era from what He 
 does in another. The universal law of gravitation 
 expressed the movements of the heavenly bodies 
 then as now. A chemist would have obtained the 
 same reactions between the elements that his labora- 
 tory yields him to-day. The atoms, molecules and 
 electrons would have spun and danced in his test- 
 tubes with the same unerring precision of time and 
 movement. The thunder cloud would have responded 
 in the same way to Franklin’s kite. The resources 
 of physical power which have revolutionized in- 
 
234 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 dustry and society were only awaiting the magic 
 touch of inventive genius to become the burden 
 bearers of the race. The same natural forces were 
 at work refashioning the earth’s surface. The 
 heavens presented the same awesome spectacle of 
 silent grandeur. There is no reason whatever for 
 believing that Nature acted in any unusual or er- 
 ratic way in the Palestine of ‘‘yesterday.’’ The 
 only differences between that age and this are those 
 of mental horizons and varying degrees of the 
 revelations of the Divine Immanence. These hori- 
 zons have broadened vastly, and the revelations of 
 the divine are immeasurably larger and richer than 
 they were in that youthful period of uncritical 
 thought. It was the very exuberance of ignorance 
 and superstition that bred the false idea of mira- 
 cles. 
 
 As to the occurrence of miracles, there is no 
 verifiable instance of a lifeless body that was 
 raised from the dead. There is no verifiable in- 
 stance of an Individual who was born of a virgin. 
 There is no verifiable instance of a human being 
 who was able to rise against the force of gravity 
 and fly off into interstellar space. There is no 
 verifiable instance of such artificial alchemy as 
 that involved in the changing of water into wine. 
 In all the vast numbers of miracles reported from 
 the prescientific ages of religious experiences, 
 there is not one which possesses a shadow of evi- 
 dence in support of its authenticity. In view of 
 this total lack of corroborating evidence, the case 
 for miracles must be regarded as wholly unproved. 
 
MIRACLES 235 
 
 Before we conclude, however, it must be said 
 that there is nothing theoretically impossible about 
 the occurrence of a miracle. Science does not deny 
 this theoretical possibility, but it does say that, 
 practically, miracles are utterly out of harmony 
 with the procedure of a normal world. If one 
 chooses, a miracle may be regarded as the result 
 of a natural law, or method of divine action, which 
 has to its credit but a single event. In the absence, 
 however, of any authentic record of such an event, 
 we are compelled to believe that the phenomena of 
 miracles have never occurred. 
 
 There is one class of so-called miracles which 
 undoubtedly have many instances to their credit. 
 But they are really not miracles, for they violate 
 no natural law. I refer to the miracles of healing. 
 Many wonderful ‘‘cures’’ have been effected in all 
 ages, to-day no less than formerly, by suggestion, 
 persuasion, hypnotic influence, and the power of 
 faith. But these are due to the operation of 
 physico-mental laws, which are not yet fully under- 
 stood. Many of the healing miracles of Christ do 
 not contravene the laws of science, and there was 
 undoubtedly an historic basis for some of them. 
 
 With the voice of science so unmistakable in its 
 teaching, it is inconceivable that learned leaders 
 of the Christian Church in the grave deliberations 
 of the council-chamber should seriously debate the 
 wisdom of insisting upon a literal adherence to 
 outgrown beliefs which should have been banished 
 from religious dogma at least three centuries ago. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 Mopern Mrmac ies 
 
 IF wk regard a miracle as a wonderful revelation 
 of the Divine Immanence, a marvelous achievement 
 of man in the conquest of Nature, then in this mod- 
 ern age we are living in the golden era of the 
 miraculous. But whether or not we accept this 
 definition of miracle, certain it is that the divine 
 revelations of God were never more manifest than 
 they are to-day. For three centuries the world has 
 been witnessing in a multitude of ways an ever- 
 enlarging unfoldment of the divine. Why should 
 men ever have thought that God has ceased to 
 reveal himself, either in the manifestations of spirit 
 or in the ceaseless evolution of material forces? 
 What were the personalities of Milton, Shakespeare, 
 Tennyson, Emerson and Lincoln,—Galileo, Newton, 
 Faraday, Darwin and Pasteur but revelations of 
 that larger Personality which ensouls the universe? 
 And what shall we say of these marvels of modern 
 science? Can we not see in them the hand of God? 
 Does any one suppose that they are purely human 
 achievements? In the evolution of civilizations and 
 the ideals of men to constantly higher levels and 
 nobler conceptions is there nothing of the divine? 
 This is God’s universe. His life is manifest at 
 
 236 
 
MODERN MIRACLES 297 
 
 every point of Greation. Were His revelations to 
 cease, the universe itself would disappear. The 
 withdrawal of the divine energy would mean cosmic 
 death. The life of God himself must depend upon 
 ceaseless activity,—perpetual revelation. So long 
 as creation stands, the inexhaustible possibilities of 
 the Divine Immanence, call them miracles or what- 
 ever one chooses, will never cease to unfold. 
 
 As God spoke through the prophets of old, so 
 does He speak through the seers of to-day. The 
 telescope, the spectroscope, the microscope and 
 the laboratory are His instruments and workshop. 
 They enable us to search out the eternal mys- 
 teries of His creation. They bring the heavenly 
 host, as it were, within hailing distance and 
 make the story of the rocks as an open book. 
 They enlist the material forces of the earth in 
 the service of man, and this co-partnership with 
 God gives an abiding consciousness of the divinity 
 of the human spirit. This mastery of a small part 
 of the physical realm has enabled men to bridge the 
 seas and span the continents. Modern medicine and 
 surgery have redeemed disease and physical suffer- 
 ing from the diabolical reign of demoniacal influ- 
 ence. Communication has become instantaneous. 
 With the speed of light the boundless ether, for 
 aught we know, carries speech and music to the 
 uttermost depths of space. In a very real sense 
 these miracles of modern science have made us 
 citizens of the universe. Like the birds, men have 
 conquered the air. The atoms have been made to 
 yield their secrets. To tap the vast reservoirs of 
 
238 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 subatomic energy and turn them to the account of 
 men may be but an initial step in the succeeding 
 conquest of physical forces. And with these tri- 
 umphs of divine revelation, human suffering wanes, 
 mental horizons broaden, life grows fuller, knowl- 
 edge expands, and man’s adjustment to his environ- 
 ment, or the Divine Immanence, constantly becomes 
 more harmonious. Surely, God is speaking to-day 
 in the lives and deéds of men as He never spoke 
 before. 
 
 Let us go back three centuries, and recall some 
 of the outstanding achievements of physical science 
 in the modern era. Harvey’s experiments upon 
 serpents, by which he demonstrated the circulation 
 of the blood, constituted an epoch-making discovery 
 in the development of physiological science. The 
 achievements of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and 
 Newton have already been told. The geometry of 
 Descartes and the physics of Huyghens became the 
 basis of later investigations of tremendous import. 
 By the close of the seventeenth century, the work of 
 the alchemists, misguided though it was, had laid 
 the foundations for modern chemistry. Astronomy 
 had come into its own. The stage had been set and 
 the curtain had been raised for the enactment of 
 the great drama of recent scientific accomplishment. 
 Slowly, painfully, blunderingly had science emerged 
 into the sunlight of modern triumphs. And what a 
 paradise awaited the workers at the dawn of the 
 new day! Fresh paths opened on every hand. In- 
 numerable secrets were ready to unfold their 
 meanings. Vast realms of unexplored truth beck- 
 
MODERN MIRACLES 239 
 
 oned the investigator. The newly-discovered force 
 of voltaic electricity had captured the popular 
 imagination, and fresh marvels were eagerly 
 awaited. The atmosphere of every European cap- 
 ital fairly tingled with suppressed interest in all 
 things scientific. Against the background of medie- 
 val ignorance and superstition were silhouetted in 
 prophetic forecast the mountain peaks of wonderful 
 revelations. And a group of earnest searchers after 
 truth, worthy peers of any of their successors, like 
 hunters in a virgin forest, began the exploration of 
 Nature’s secrets. 
 
 Though it may be a myth we like to stand in 
 imagination beside the fireplace of that Scottish 
 home on the River Clyde and watch the boy Watt, 
 as he ponders over the expansive force of steam. 
 Years later we enter his little shop at the University 
 of Glasgow and see him at work on the reconstruc- 
 tion of the Newcomen steam-engine. Some unseen 
 power urges him onward. His imagination has been 
 fired with a great idea. He has caught a vision of 
 a wonderful achievement for his fellowmen. He 
 seeks to shackle the giant Steam and harness him 
 for the world’s work. The result is the lifting of 
 human burdens and the inauguration of a new in- 
 dustrial age. We behold a revelation of the divine, 
 a miracle of God. 
 
 Scheele, working in the midst of poverty in his 
 hittle apothecary shop, and Priestley, neglecting his 
 duties as a clergyman to gratify his love for ex- 
 perimental science, discover oxygen. Cavendish, 
 wealthy recluse and passionate lover of truth, de- 
 
240 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 composes water and obtains hydrogen. Lavoisier, 
 brilliant chemist of the French Revolution, balance 
 in hand, determines that in the numerous trans- 
 formations of matter nothing is lost. In the econ- 
 omy of God’s universe all is saved. In imagination, 
 we see Davy dancing about the laboratory of the 
 Royal Institution from sheer joy at the discovery 
 of the metal potassium through the agency of the 
 voltaic current. We stand beside him in the lecture 
 room as, with a battery of two thousand cells, he 
 produces the electric are and the highest temper- 
 ature then known to science. In that same labor- 
 atory we follow Faraday, illustrious pupil of Davy, 
 as, after ten years of patient knocking at the door 
 of truth, he reveals the laws of electro-magnetism 
 and makes plain the pathway to the invention of 
 the dynamo, the electric motor, the induction coil 
 and the transformer. What are these unveilings of 
 eternal truth but revelations of the divine? Do 
 they disclose nothing but a happy redistribution of 
 energy and matter and the activity of finite intelli- 
 gence? No, the minds of these workers in a new 
 realm were fired with the Divine Presence as truly 
 as were prophet and seer of old. They were instru- 
 ments for the revelation of truths necessary for the 
 next step in the evolution of the race. Blind chance 
 and the accidental combinations of energy and mat- 
 ter could never account for achievements so divine. 
 
 Hargreaves overturns his spinning-wheel and in 
 a moment of divine revelation catches a vision of a 
 new machine to lighten the burden of his fellow- 
 workers. Arkwright chances to see a red-hot bar 
 
MODERN MIRACLES 241 
 
 of iron being rolled into a long rod by repeated 
 passages between heavy corrugated rollers and in 
 imagination he beholds the ‘‘water-frame’’ for 
 spinning cotton warp. Crompton, pondering over 
 the defects of the spinning-jenny and the water- 
 frame, combines the excellencies of both in the 
 spinning-mule and thereby carries a host of patient 
 toilers past another mile-stone in the progress of 
 the textile industry. Cartwright, an English clergy- 
 man, challenged by a number of gentlemen to at- 
 tempt the ‘‘impossible,’’ invents the power-loom and 
 inaugurates a new era in the science of weaving. 
 Kili Whitney loses a coveted position as private 
 tutor in the home of a southern planter and turns 
 his mechanical genius to the’invention of the cotton- 
 gin and the consequent establishment of an industry 
 of vast importance to his own and other lands. 
 Creations of the divine personality, which we call 
 genius, were these. As naturally as the flower un- 
 folds from the bud, this group of revolutionizing 
 inventions, at the proper point in the evolution of 
 
 the race, were brought forth to meet the world’s © te 
 
 need. 
 
 Time and again the scourge of small-pox claimed 
 in death one-tenth of the population of Christendom. 
 Then toward the close of the eighteenth century, 
 Jenner, as though guided by the hand of a Divine 
 Destiny, discovered the secret of preventive vacci- 
 nation, and wrought a miracle scarcely equaled else- 
 where in the history of medical science. Had we 
 stood in the Massachusetts General Hospital on 
 October 16, 1846, we might have heard a young man 
 
242 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 exclaim ‘‘I have felt no pain.’? He had just under- 
 gone what would formerly have been a painful 
 surgical operation, but, thanks to the God-given 
 discovery of ether by Doctor William T. G. Morton, 
 surgery had been robbed of the major part of its 
 attendant suffering. Those who had come to scoff 
 beheld this almost incredible triumph in awe and 
 silent admiration. No miracle from the unscien- 
 tific past can compare, in the blessings conferred 
 upon mankind, with this beneficent conquest of pain. 
 What more significant ‘‘sign’’ of the divine can one 
 desire than this temporary stilling of tortured 
 nerves? With such a victory written large in every 
 hospital of the world, why should any one choose 
 to think that miracles have ever ceased? 
 
 A generation later in a Paris hospital, an old 
 man kept anxious watch over the life of a peasant 
 lad. For two weeks he had kept the vigil. Every 
 symptom was of the utmost concern. No change, 
 however slight, escaped his eager notice. He could 
 not believe that he would fail in what was to be his 
 crowning achievement in snatching men from death. 
 He had supreme faith in his new-found vaccine for 
 the dread malady of rabies and in the God of the 
 universe whose agent he considered himself to be. 
 This young victim of a mad dog’s bite must not die. 
 The hitherto fatal germs of hydrophobia coursing 
 in his veins must be destroyed by the preventive 
 virus with which he had been inoculated. No magic 
 miracle was sought, but only a triumph of medical 
 chemistry and the justification of a great faith in 
 the scientific functioning of human organs. Louis 
 
MODERN MIRACLES 243 
 
 Pasteur, the father of the germ theory of disease 
 and old before his time in the service of suffering 
 humanity, won his battle with death, for the lad 
 lived and the treatment which the great scientist 
 established has since saved the lives of thousands 
 in every part of the world. To this savior of life 
 and Lord Lister, his comrade across the Channel, 
 the world will forever be grateful for the introduc- 
 tion of antiseptic surgery and the redemption of 
 mankind from the preventable ravages of infectious 
 disease. What miracle recorded in sacred literature 
 can compare in its benefits to the afflicted of the 
 earth with these simple triumphs of medical science? 
 May we not believe that this great apostle of en- 
 lightened medical research was divinely sent to 
 earth that men ‘‘might have life and have it more 
 abundantly’? 
 
 To that little group of distinguished men stand- 
 ing in the Supreme Court room at the Capitol, on 
 May 24, 1844, as Morse telegraphed to Vail at Balti- 
 more that now famous message, ‘‘What hath God 
 wrought?’’ a miracle, more wonderful than any of 
 old, seemed to have been worked. In that hour of 
 matchless triumph, the long years of poverty, strug- 
 gle, hardship, ridicule and apparent defeat became 
 as dust in the balance. The voice of God had 
 spoken through the divinity of the human spirit. 
 A. revelation of the Divine Immanence of vast im- 
 portance to the future evolution of the race had 
 been vouchsafed to the knowledge of men. This 
 pioneer of a new day, who had dared to believe in 
 the ‘‘impossible,’’ had been permitted to draw aside 
 
244 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 the veil and disclose a partial vision of yet more 
 marvelous things to come. 
 
 And again in imagination we see that company 
 of eminent judges in an out-of-the-way corner of 
 the Educational Building at the Philadelphia Cen- 
 tennial in 1876, awed and silent witnesses, as Dom 
 Pedro, the young emperor of Brazil, dropping the 
 telephone receiver, exclaims, ‘‘My God, it talks!’’ 
 Thirty-nine years later, Bell and Watson, the prin- 
 cipals in that historic first message in the Boston 
 attic, on an equally historic occasion, converse with 
 each other across the continent as easily as though 
 they were in adjoining rooms. The dashing of the 
 breakers on the rock-bound shores of the Golden 
 Gate are distinctly heard in the metropolis on the 
 Atlantic sea-board. Nine months pass, and Theo- 
 dore N. Vail, at his desk at 195 Broadway, New 
 York, speaks into an ordinary telephone transmitter 
 and the boundless ether carries his voice on wire- 
 less waves to Colonel John J. Carty at San Diego, 
 California. Sitting in Madison Square Garden, New 
 York City, on Armistice Day, 1921, the writer, one 
 of many thousands, heard the resonant voice of 
 President Harding, speaking over the body of the 
 Unknown Soldier in the marble amphitheater at 
 Arlington, Virginia, say: ‘‘We are met to-day to 
 pay an impersonal tribute. The name of him whose 
 body lies before us took flight with his imperishable 
 soul, We know not whence he came, but only that 
 his death marks him with the everlasting glory of 
 an American dying for his country.’’ And so on to 
 the end of the address, and the echoing of the artil- 
 
MODERN MIRACLES 945 
 
 lery from the Virginia hills, and the sounding of 
 taps. Every word was clear and distinct.. Not a 
 syllable was blurred. At the same time a vast audi- 
 ence in San Francisco listened to the ceremonies 
 and, as it were, ‘‘stood beside the casket’’ of 
 America’s hero. The reverent thousands on either 
 ocean-side joined with the assembled multitudes at 
 Arlington in singing America and in repeating the 
 Lord’s Prayer. New miracles of wire telephony 
 have made possible the union of the whole nation in 
 a single audience. Before events like these, the 
 miracles of old pale into insignificance. 
 
 Let us go back nearly forty years to that lab- 
 oratory in Karlshruhe, Germany, where Heinrich 
 Hertz, the brilhant pupil of Helmholtz and the 
 prophet of a matchless revelation of the Unseen, 
 first demonstrated the properties of wireless waves. 
 Sparks of the divine were those discharges of the 
 Leyden jar, lighting the way to the conquest of a 
 vast new realm of hitherto unsuspected possibili- 
 ties. <A little later in the garden of his father’s 
 estate, we see the Italian youth, Marconi, realize the 
 dream of practical wireless telegraphy. We follow 
 him a few years after to the rock-bound coast of 
 Newfoundland and watch him, tense with expec- 
 tancy, as he listens for the three clicks of the 
 telephone receiver which are to tell him of the tri- 
 umph of transoceanic wireless. The rest has been 
 a matter of detail, the further expression of the 
 Divine Immanence through a multitude of minds. 
 A miracle of overshadowing significance is this 
 transmission and reception of speech and music 
 through the medium of the intangible ether. 
 
246 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 The more recent miracles of modern science did 
 not come one by one, in isolated loneliness with long 
 intervals between. Toward the close of the last 
 century and the beginning of the present, the world 
 was carried forward on a great wave of scientific 
 discovery into immense new spaces of the hitherto 
 unknown. Sir William Crookes discovered the 
 cathode rays, emitted from the negative pole of an 
 excited vacuum tube; and Sir J. J. Thomson and 
 others showed that these rays consist of infinites- 
 imally small particles of negative electricity, called 
 electrons, the raw material of atoms, the fire mist, 
 nebule and solar systems. At last men were find- 
 ing the key to the very ante-room to the ages-old 
 mysteries of energy and matter. And then one day, 
 Conrad Rontgen, working in his laboratory, ob- 
 tained a wonderful new light,—a light whose mar- 
 velous rays would penetrate opaque matter and 
 reveal in shadowy, ghost-like silhouettes the struc- 
 tures of many objects. These X-rays, exceedingly 
 short waves in the ether produced at the rate of 
 three quintillion per second, as all the world knows, 
 have become one of the most important agencies in 
 medical diagnosis and the alleviation of human ills. 
 Do we not instinctively feel that revelations go 
 beneficent are immeasurably more worthy of Him 
 who animates the tides of life than lawless ‘‘signs 
 and wonders’? wrought to awe the superstitious 
 minds of ignorant peoples? 
 
 The ‘‘mystery’’ of radium, the alchemy of its 
 transmutation, its vast reservoirs of subatomic 
 energy and wonderful properties have not yet 
 
MODERN MIRACLES Q47 
 
 ceased to enchant the minds of the multitude, even in 
 this day of super-miracles. And why should this 
 divine revelation of atomic secrets ever cease to 
 hold in reverent wonder the thought of men? Al- 
 ready this new element, obtained by Madame and 
 Pierre Curie after the most prodigious research in 
 the history of analytical chemistry, has thrown a 
 flood of light upon centuries-old problems of 
 science. It gives a possible explanation of the 
 source of the solar fires. It helps us to determine 
 the age of the earth. It reveals the structure of the 
 atom. And it holds a vision of sources of energy 
 of such dizzy vastness as to bewilder thought and 
 intoxicate the imagination. Where the path will 
 lead, upon which scientists have entered, no man 
 dares predict. But that the sequel of this unfolding 
 of the divine will be a glorious one, there is no 
 shadow of doubt. 
 
 We might speak of the fulfillment of that won- 
 derful prophecy of Tennyson, when in 1840 he 
 immortalized his vision of the conquest of the air 
 in the following lines: 
 
 For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could 
 
 see, 
 
 Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that 
 would be; 
 
 Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of 
 magic sails, 
 
 Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with 
 costly bales; 
 
 Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there 
 rain’d a ghastly dew 
 
 From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the 
 central blue; .. . 
 
248 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 To mount into the air like the birds, to soar like 
 the eagle, to ride the billows of the sky as a majestic 
 ship sails the sea,—that is a miracle of such recent 
 accomplishment that it almost seems like a passing 
 dream, from which we may even yet awake. The 
 persistent knockings of the Wrights at the door of 
 mystery brought it to pass, and the exploits of a 
 host of daring aviators hold promise of still other 
 miracles to come. 
 
 And what shall we say of the stupendous intel- 
 lectual achievement of Albert Einstein and its large 
 measure of verification by the leading scientists 
 of the world? The mental processes of a great 
 thinker found their counterpart in the realities of 
 the universe. ‘To use an oft-quoted truth, he 
 thought God’s thoughts after Him. In one impor- 
 tant realm of the eternal verities, he has undoubt- 
 edly approached more closely to the ultimate 
 solution of certain fundamental problems of far- 
 reaching significance than has any preceding phi- 
 losopher. It will be to the everlasting glory of this 
 physicist from across the seas that he has taken us a 
 long way nearer to an understanding of the ages-old 
 mysteries of time and space. 
 
 Yes, prophets of God are these modern miracle- 
 workers, as truly as were those whose words and 
 deeds are recorded in the sacred literature of any 
 time or language. So long as the universe stands, 
 the progressive revelation of the Divine Immanence 
 will never cease. The false idea that revelation dis- 
 appeared with the close of the Biblical era is an 
 irreverent reflection upon the Deity and a gross 
 
MODERN MIRACLES 949 
 
 injustice to the great apostles of truth in succeeding 
 centuries. [very achievement that leads to larger 
 knowledge, deeper insight, and more spiritual con- 
 ceptions is a manifestation of the divine in the uni- 
 verse and proof of the divinity of man, 
 
CHAPTER X 
 THe Bucasoo or Natorgat Law 
 
 Wuen Johann Kepler formulated the cosmic 
 rules which express the undeviating movements of 
 the planets, the world caught its first glimpse of 
 a universe of law and order. A vast realm of the 
 celestial spaces seemed to be redeemed from the 
 influence of a capricious Being and His attendant 
 hosts. Copernicus and Galileo had added the solar 
 system to the known domain of the heavenly bodies. 
 And the great Scientist of Pisa, Padua and Florence 
 had discovered the modes of action of moving bod- 
 ies at the surface of the earth. Slowly through the 
 mists of many centuries of ignorance and super- 
 stition began to penetrate the hght of a new 
 knowledge. These pioneers in the task of attaining 
 to a better understanding of this vast universe of 
 which we are a part had begun to draw aside the 
 veil which had hitherto enshrouded in deepest 
 mystery the marvelous uniformity and precision of 
 action which hold sway in the occurrence of natural 
 phenomena. A reign of perfect law began to emerge 
 above the mental horizons of thinking men. 
 
 Still at first, men were not deeply disturbed by 
 this discovery of natural law. The full import of 
 its mistaken significance but slowly dawned upon 
 
 250 
 
THE BUGABOO OF NATURAL LAW 251 
 
 their minds. And then came Sir Isaac Newton 
 and the Universal Law of Gravitation, if we ex- 
 cept Einstein’s achievement, the most stupendous 
 generalization in the history of science. Of course 
 Newton did not discover the fact of gravitation. 
 That had been a matter of common experience 
 from the remotest antiquity. The Greek philos- 
 opher, Anaxagoras, had even suggested that the 
 same force which attracts objects at the surface 
 of the earth might also hold the heavenly bodies in 
 their orbits. But to no one before the time of New- 
 ton had occurred the possibility that this force 
 might be a common property of all matter and ex- 
 tend its influence to the uttermost depths of space. 
 Much less had any one dreamed of being able to 
 demonstrate the law of its action. And then in one 
 of those supreme moments of divine revelation, 
 which have repeatedly punctuated the progress of 
 the race, there flashed across the mind of this intel- 
 lectual giant of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries, the idea that the moon might be a falling 
 body obeying the same laws that Galileo had dis- 
 covered a generation before. Still how could he 
 prove it? That was the mighty query which chal- 
 lenged his genius. All the world now knows that he 
 solved the problem and demonstrated the seeming 
 paradox of a falling body which constantly ap- 
 proaches the earth and yet never reaches it, To 
 explain this apparent contradiction, Newton for- 
 mulated the First Law of Motion: Every body tends 
 to continue in its state of rest or of uniform motion 
 in a straight line, unless acted upon by an outside 
 
952 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 force. To him it was as clear as sunlight that the 
 resultant path of the original straight-line motion 
 of the moon together with its accelerated motion 
 toward the center of the earth would be the precise 
 curve which our satellite forever follows in its end- 
 less journey through space. The mathematical 
 demonstration of the accuracy of the law broadened 
 the earth-bound souls of men and inaugurated a new 
 era in scientific thought. 
 
 - Still the theological significance of this epoch- 
 making discovery was so totally at variance with 
 the traditional teaching of the church that Newton 
 was immediately denounced as an atheist. The 
 truth was unwelcome, just as it is in certain re- 
 ligious circles to-day. Even Leibnitz, a mathe- 
 matician scarcely inferior to Newton himself, re- 
 fused to accept the theory. Doubtless we should 
 not blame these earnest souls too severely, for the 
 idea of law was startlingly opposed to their notions 
 of the divine plan of operating the universe. Every 
 new discovery of law seemed to rule out God. 
 Physical forces seemed to take the place of the 
 direct action of the Deity. A force, like that of 
 gravity, and its unvarying law of action appeared 
 to be a thing in itself, completely independent of a 
 divine source. Men could not see that a natural 
 law inevitably implies a Divine Lawgiver,—that a 
 law which is amenable to human intelligence must 
 be the expression of thought and purpose. They 
 could not rise, all in a moment, to the lofty con- 
 ception of a natural law as being nothing more than 
 a method of divine action. To minds imbued with 
 
THE BUGABOO OF NATURAL LAW Diss 
 
 the crude notion of an absentee God, fostered for 
 centuries by St. Augustine and the church, this 
 invasion of law seemed to destroy the world of 
 sacred theological conceptions, even as the sweep 
 of Galileo’s telescope across the heavens had 
 smashed the celestial spheres of the scientific 
 romancers of the early centuries of the Christian 
 era. Simple as it now seems, these worshipers of a 
 sacred past did not understand that the law of 
 gravitation only expresses the way in which the 
 universal immanence of the Creator ceaselessly 
 manifests itself in one important phase of cosmic 
 activity. Instead, they saw law usurping the place 
 of God. ‘To their minds He was being crowded out 
 of His universe. That the laws seemed to be true 
 was as dust in the balance. With a loyalty to mis- 
 taken theological notions amounting almost to 
 fanaticism, these zealous souls defended their God 
 as valiantly as ever countrymen came to the rescue 
 of their king. All honor to them for their zeal, but 
 let us take a lesson from their example and not in 
 enlightened America to-day repeat the same colossal 
 blunder in fresh fields of equally important scien- 
 tific discovery. 
 
 Newton did not rest content with his explanation 
 of the motion of the moon. In a short time he had 
 shown that Kepler’s laws of planetary motion are a 
 direct result of the law of gravitation. Within its 
 majestic sway, he brought, not only the motions of 
 the planets and their satellites, but those of the 
 comets and the meteors as well. In accordance with 
 this all embracing law, Halley calculated the path 
 
254 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 and period of the comet which bears his name. Sir 
 William Herschel, who, in a moment of triumph, 
 exclaimed, ‘‘I have looked farther into space than 
 ever human being did before me. I have observed 
 stars of which the light takes two millions of years 
 to travel to this globe,’? one evening in March, 
 1781, brought within the range of his telescope a 
 new world. It was the planet Uranus, and astron- 
 omers soon determined that its motion, aside from 
 certain deviations, or ‘‘perturbations’’ as they are 
 called, is true to the Newtonian law. Still, it was 
 felt that these deviations required explanation. 
 Accordingly two astronomers, Leverrier in France 
 and Adams in England, sought the solution of the 
 problem. Independently of each other and solely 
 on the basis of the law of gravitation, these men 
 calculated the path and mass of a planet which, 
 through its attraction for Uranus, would produce 
 precisely the effects observed. Immediately upon 
 the completion of his work, Leverrier telegraphed to 
 the Royal Observatory in Berlin, stating that, should 
 its telescope be pointed to a certain spot in the 
 heavens, a hitherto unknown planet would be 
 brought to view. We now know that this supreme 
 faith in the universality of divine law was rewarded 
 by the discovery of the planet Neptune. 
 
 No greater example of faith is to be found in all 
 history. And it was faith in God,—faith in the 
 uniformity of His modes of action and in the trust- 
 worthiness of His universe. In one vast realm of 
 cosmic action, God did not operate in a capricious 
 or irregular way. A large area of the universe 
 
THE BUGABOO OF NATURAL LAW 255 
 
 had been won over from the unknown to the 
 known. The frontiers of human knowledge had been 
 immeasurably extended. Ancient barriers to intel- 
 lectual progress were beginning to be broken down, 
 but the inertia arising from fossilized forms of 
 error was tremendously difficult to overcome. It 
 has always been thus, and scarcely less so in this 
 age of boasted enlightenment than it was in the 
 early days of scientific discovery. Intrenched 
 ignorance and content therewith are traditional 
 foes to the irresistible forward movement of civil- 
 ization into larger fields of knowledge and wider 
 intellectual horizons. And yet such glorious scien- 
 tific achievements as the discovery of Neptune 
 made irreparable breaches in the ranks of those 
 whose faces were forever turned toward the past. 
 Slowly the truth about the universe asserted itself, 
 and the new conception, based upon actual facts, 
 was found to be immeasurably more significant and 
 beautiful than had been the crude imaginings of 
 ignorant peoples. And of immense import, too, is 
 the fact that these discoveries did not weaken the 
 religious faith of those pioneers whose patient 
 researches unveiled something of the eternal mys- 
 teries of the heavenly hosts. Few coneurred with 
 the astronomer who said, ‘‘I have searched the 
 heavens with my telescope, and I can not find God 
 there.’?’ Gradually, the starry firmament was 
 found to be ‘‘erystallized mathematics’’ and, so far 
 as men’s knowledge extended, a perfect system of 
 undeviating law and order reigned. And yet it be- 
 came increasingly apparent to thoughtful minds 
 
256 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 that a universe cast in a mathematical mold and 
 operating in accordance with invariable laws of cos- 
 mic action must be the product of a Supreme 
 Thinker. Otherwise men could have found no mean- 
 ing in it. The simplest interpretation of Nature 
 would have been utterly impossible. The law of 
 gravitation would have remained an unsearchable 
 mystery to the end of time. Ignorance would for- 
 ever sit upon the throne, even as it did throughout 
 the long night preceding the dawn of scientific 
 triumphs, 
 
 Natural laws do not explain why the universe 
 acts as it does, but only how it acts. All science 
 can discover about physical forces is their habits of 
 action. Misunderstanding of these simple truths 
 has been responsible for a deal of theological con- 
 troversy. And the universe is not governed by 
 laws, in the sense that an outside power issues de- 
 erees to which it compels obedience. Natural laws 
 are simply the modes of universal procedure accord- 
 ing to which the Divine Immanence, which is forever 
 and everywhere present, ceaselessly expresses itself. 
 They are but the uniform lines of behavior along 
 which the Eternal Life of all created things 
 manifests. But it is utterly unthinkable that 
 physical forces and natural laws could operate in 
 perfect harmony without the indwelling presence of 
 a Divine Being, whose life and modes of action 
 supply the energy and guidance without which the 
 universe would go to smash and resolve itself into 
 irretrievable chaos. No, let us rid our minds of the 
 false idea that physical forces and natural laws sit 
 
THE BUGABOO OF NATURAL LAW 250 
 
 over against the Deity in perpetual hostility to the 
 supremacy of His divine prerogatives. One would 
 be as impossible without the other as light without 
 darkness. As well try to think of an individual 
 without a personality, as to attempt to conceive 
 of God apart from those multitudinous forms of 
 divine action which we call natural laws. There is 
 nothing whatever in the idea of natural law to 
 interfere in the slightest degree with the most 
 spiritual conception of the relation existing be- 
 tween God and His universe. What the flower 
 is to the life which informs the stalk and root, 
 so are natural phenomena to Him who is the 
 Soul of the universe and the source of its being. 
 The laws of life,—mere formulations of methods of 
 growth,—are as vital to one as to the other. There 
 is no more ground for hostility between the ideas 
 of natural law and divine action than there is be- 
 tween our knowledge of the expansive force of 
 steam and the controlling hand of the engineer on 
 the throttle. God and natural law are as insep- 
 arable as the north and south poles of a magnet. A 
 natural law in and of itself is an impossible abstrac- 
 tion. Gravitation is not a ‘‘rebellious Titan’’ setting 
 up a little kingdom of his own in opposition to the 
 sovereignty of God. The discovery of the law of 
 its operation simply enables us to catch a glimpse 
 of how God acts. And so of every other physical 
 force and natural law. Any view which erects a 
 physical force and its mode of action into a little 
 god, unconsciously at least, reverts to the barbaric 
 idea of many gods. 
 
258 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 As has already been intimated, the strange notion 
 arose that the extension of the realm of natural law 
 automatically vacated the presence of God. Wide 
 areas of the universe became godless. The discov- 
 ery of a reign of law seemed to leave nothing for 
 God to do. Many have agreed with Comte that 
 ‘‘the time has arrived when we may escort the 
 Creator to the edges of the universe and bow him 
 out with thanks for his past services.’’ In the 
 theological view, the only corner of the universe left 
 for the exercise of His capricious action, through 
 divine intervention and miracle, was that in which 
 the reign of law had not been traced. For long, 
 comets, thunder-bolts and physical disease were 
 thought to be beyond the reach of scientific ex- 
 planation. But these, too, have been shorn of their 
 supernatural origin. These theological apostles of 
 a losing cause, fighting desperately in defense of 
 traditional error and with their faces forever turned 
 away from the fresh revelations of God’s eternal 
 truth, have lost every battle in the history of the 
 centuries-old controversy. As they view the rapidly 
 dwindling area of their little domain, the only 
 province left to their supposed guardianship seems 
 to be the creation of the universe by divine fiat at 
 a comparatively recent moment of cosmic time. 
 The law of evolution is the modern octopus which 
 must be slain, if the divinity of the universe and 
 Christian faith are not to perish. Miracles, too, 
 seem to be passing into eclipse, and for that ancient 
 legacy of ignorance and superstition, the defenders 
 of a totally false conception of God and Nature 
 valiantly contend. 
 
THE BUGABOO OF NATURAL LAW 259 
 
 But, as has been shown elsewhere in these pages, 
 the law of evolution has been amply established by 
 an overwhelming wealth of direct evidence, and the 
 fiction of miracles has been traced to its origin. 
 The battle still rages, but the theological cause is 
 forever lost. Just as light dispels the darkness, so 
 does the irresistible conquest of truth overcome 
 error, however sincere and devoted its misguided 
 defenders may be. Evolution is simply God’s way 
 of working. It does not eliminate Him. It shows 
 creation as progressive, never ceasing. It extends 
 the time of accomplishment into the past for untold 
 eons and carries it forward into all eternity. 
 Against an hypothesis of special creation without 
 a particle of evidence in its support, it places a 
 theory so abundantly attested by actual facts that 
 scientists already recognize it as a law little less 
 comparable in validity to the law of gravitation. If 
 theologians are to overthrow it, they must bring in 
 opposition something more than the myths and 
 legends of the prehistoric past. The time has long 
 since passed when Scripture may be quoted in de- 
 fiance of natural laws. Through the Scriptures 
 runs the strong tide of spiritual truth, but not that 
 of literal scientific fact. The tragedy of the whole 
 controversy has been failure to recognize this out- 
 standing truth. 
 
 Scientists, too, have not been without fault. The 
 erass materialism of a generation ago, typified by 
 the school of Ernest Haeckel, was as stupid as the 
 unreasoning opposition of theological dogmatists. 
 The attempt to explain the universe by the operation 
 
260 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 of purely mechanical forces and natural laws, de- 
 void of any directive agency, was as crude as any 
 of the impossible notions of the defenders of the 
 faith. The erection of the scientific abstractions of 
 matter, force and energy into distinct entities, 
 capable of independent action, and the surrender of 
 the universe to blind chance were on a par with the 
 superstitious spirit creations of prehistoric times. 
 That the law of evolution was at first regarded as 
 dispensing with the necessity of God is no credit 
 to the early exponents of this epoch-making view 
 of creation. The evolution of the earth and organic 
 life from very simple beginnings through the action 
 of blind mechanical forces and the operation of self- 
 directing natural laws is strictly a sleight-of-hand 
 performance. Given the potentialities of solar sys- 
 tems and living things in the latent energy and 
 cosmic laws of primeval chaos, and of course the 
 scientist can bring them forth, just as the juggler 
 pulls from his plug-hat all that he has magically 
 concealed within it. But the real problem is still 
 there. Only a simplification of words has occurred. 
 The facts are as mysterious as ever, Back of these 
 potentialities of infinite magnitude must stand a 
 first cause as big as the universe itself. And that 
 can be nothing less than what the theologian calls 
 God and the scientist designates as the Divine Im- 
 manence of all creation. Wherever natural laws 
 prevail, we now see only the manifestation of the 
 thought and action of the Supreme Lawgiver. True, 
 many scientists do not yet accept this view, just as 
 many theologians still cling to the dogmas of an 
 
THE BUGABOO OF NATURAL LAW 261 
 
 outgrown religious faith. But whatever the ulti- 
 mate truth may be, we can be perfectly sure that 
 sometime in the eternal years of God it will mightily 
 prevail. Neither the theorizing of earth-bound scien- 
 tists nor the gross misconceptions of dogmatic 
 theologians can stay its triumph. 
 
 From the early beginnings of Kepler, Galileo 
 and Newton to the vast achievements of the nine- 
 teenth and twentieth centuries, the discovery of 
 these divine methods of cosmic action has been one 
 of the chief ends of scientific research. Laplace 
 formulated the Nebular Hypothesis to account for 
 the origin of solar systems. The principles of 
 chemical action discovered by Priestley, Cavendish, 
 Scheele and Lavoisier brought to an end the reign 
 of the alchemist and redeemed a large area of nat- 
 ural phenomena from capricious influence. Frank- 
 lin robbed the thunderbolt of its lawless terror. 
 Faraday sought out the laws of electro-magnetic 
 action and laid the foundation for the marvelous 
 electrical achievements of the present age. Watt, 
 Fulton and Stephenson harnessed the giant steam, 
 Berzelius, for half a century the ezar of chemistry, 
 did the pioneer work in determining the relative 
 weights of atoms, and the great Russian Men- 
 deléeff with his discovery of the periodic law of the 
 elements unlocked the ante-room to the atomic 
 mysteries. Bunsen through the invention of the 
 spectroscope enabled scientists to analyze the stars 
 and determine their physical states. Helmholtz and 
 Lord Kelvin established the law of the conservation 
 of energy. Morse, Bell, Hertz, Marconi, Rontgen, 
 
262 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 Madame Curie and the Wrights, to mention only a 
 few of the great names in recent scientific achieve- 
 ments, have made conquest after conquest in unrav- 
 eling the ages-old secrets of the universe and in 
 extending the domains of natural law. What 
 the future holds no man can say, but that it will be 
 a glorious one there can be no shadow of doubt. So 
 long as the race is here, the revelations of God will 
 never cease. ‘ 
 
 Natural law, stripped of its artificial framework 
 and false interpretations, is nothing more nor less 
 than a divine mode of action. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 Atoms, MoLecuLes anp HLEctTRONS 
 
 Wuart myriads of infinitesimally small worlds 
 the modern scientist has disclosed! Unseen, utterly 
 beyond the penetrating gaze of the most powerful 
 microscope, and yet as well known as the cobble- 
 stones beneath our feet, these miniature systems of 
 primeval units are the raw materials from which 
 creation will forever spring anew. Life may dis- 
 appear, worlds come and go, this universe resolve 
 itself into nebular chaos, and still atoms, molecules, 
 and electrons, indestructible and eternal, will con- 
 stitute the building blocks with which the Great 
 Architect will again fashion stars and solar systems. 
 Over against the inconceivably stupendous cosmic 
 systems of the celestial spaces stand these exceed- 
 ingly tiny worlds of marvelous beauty and exquisite 
 perfection. Unthinkably great, unimaginably small, 
 and yet everywhere a perfect reign of law and or- 
 der,—that is the tremendous contrast and the divine 
 harmony which this universe presents. 
 
 But why disturb our minds with thoughts of 
 entities so infinitesimally small as to be almost in- 
 conceivable? Because they reveal the secrets of the 
 ages. They usher us into the very ante-room of the 
 eternal mysteries of energy and matter. They bring 
 
 263 
 
264. THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 the dream of the alchemist to pass. They disclose 
 wonders more marvelous than were ever envisioned 
 in the soul of the boldest dreamer. The majestic 
 sway of these cosmic units extends from the mi- 
 nutest particle of matter to the remotest bounds of 
 space. They are, as it were, the threads in the loom 
 on which the Master Artist weaves the delicate glow 
 of the beautiful Aurora Borealis and the faint soft 
 beams of the zodiacal light. An electric current is 
 but a stream of electrons moving along a conductor. 
 The wonderful achievements of the radio art are 
 due to swarms of electrons within a vacuum tube, 
 To-morrow, these tireless servants of men may make 
 possible the miracle of the wireless transmission of 
 electric power. And should the scientist discover 
 the secret key to the controlled liberation of the im- 
 measurably vast reservoirs of energy locked up 
 within the electronic systems of the atoms, the race 
 would, indeed, stand at a turning-point in its evo- 
 lution of such dizzy possibilities as to dwarf into 
 insignificance all the proud achievements of pre- 
 ceding ages. Why should we study atoms, mole- 
 cules and electrons? Because they bring us into a 
 larger understanding of the fundamental realities 
 of the universe. Because the pursuit of knowledge 
 and of a deeper insight into the revelations of the 
 Divine Immanence is possibly the greatest calling 
 among men. Because this new knowledge makes 
 possible a more perfect harmony between the finite 
 spirit of man and the infinite Soul of God. 
 
 We are inclined to fancy that the scientist is 
 thinking wholly along visionary lines when he talks — 
 
ATOMS, MOLECULES AND ELECTRONS 265 
 
 in such a matter-of-fact way about physical and 
 chemical units which he has never seen and may 
 never hope to see. Still, Millikan, the greatest 
 physicist in America, states that ‘‘we can now count 
 the exact number of molecules in any given volume 
 or in any known weight of any homogeneous sub- 
 stance with even more certainty than we can count 
 the population of a city or a state.’’* Think of the 
 extraordinary precision with which he places the 
 molecular population of a cubic centimeter of air 
 (a small thimbleful) at ‘‘exactly 27.05 billions of 
 billions.’’ We can not go into the methods by which 
 these results are obtained, but we may rely with 
 perfect confidence upon their accuracy. 
 
 Possibly we may gain some faint conception of 
 the relative sizes of these cosmic units. <A cubic inch 
 of any gas under normal conditions will contain four 
 hundred and forty-one quintillion molecules and still 
 leave ‘‘great volumes’’ of space for billions and bil- 
 lions more to be crowded between them. Matter is 
 porous, and the spaces between the molecules are 
 enormously larger than the molecules themselves. 
 A considerable quantity of salt may be dissolved in 
 water with only very slight increase in volume. 
 Gold may be dissolved in liquid mercury. In each 
 case the molecules of the solid simply make their 
 way between the molecules of the liquid, and still 
 they are separated by relatively great distances. 
 The atmosphere about our planet extends outward 
 to a distance of possibly fifty miles. But, if we 
 could suddenly cool it to two hundred degrees below 
 
 *Contributions of Science to Religion, D, Appleton & Company. 
 
266 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 zero Centigrade, it would form a layer of liquid 
 air upon the surface of the earth only thirty-five 
 feet deep. And still the molecules would be far from 
 touching. A piece of beaten gold-leaf but one four- 
 hundred-thousandth of an inch in thickness still 
 contains many layers of molecules. A soap film 
 may be blown to a thickness of one three-millionth 
 of an inch, but even yet it is estimated that the 
 molecules lie twenty or thirty tiers in depth. The 
 thinnest film obtainable is that of oil spreading 
 upon the surface of water. Although its thickness 
 is but a fifty-millionth of an inch, it contains a dou- 
 ble layer of molecules with an intervening space 
 much greater than the diameters of the molecules 
 themselves. A grain of musk will scent a room for 
 years. A single grain of indigo will distinetly color 
 a ton of water. A tiny bubble of chlorine gas will 
 impart its odor to every cubic centimenter of air 
 in a large room. When we consider the countless 
 billions of molecules which must be poured forth to 
 accomplish these results, we gain some more or less 
 shadowy notion of the exceeding smallness of one 
 of these individual physical units. 
 
 But, if molecules seem small, what shall we say 
 of atoms? The diameter of an atom is a million 
 times smaller than the thickness of the finest hair. — 
 A cubic centimeter of hydrogen may contain fifty- 
 four quintillion atoms, and yet each atom is an elec- 
 tronic system, the individual members of which are 
 as far apart relatively to their size as the planets 
 in our solar system. On an average it would take 
 four hundred million atoms side by side to measure 
 
ATOMS, MOLECULES AND ELECTRONS 267 
 
 an inch. It requires a quintillion of atoms of gold 
 to weigh fifteen grains. Sir Oliver Lodge estimates 
 that the weight of an atom of hydrogen, the lightest 
 of the elements, is a million million million times 
 less than that of a grain of lyeopodium powder. Or, 
 we may say that it weighs twenty-five ten-thou- 
 sandths of a grain divided by one followed by 
 twenty-one zeros. : 
 
 It is the structure of the atom, however, which 
 is now of chief interest to the scientist. In the more 
 than two thousand years intervening between the 
 happy guess of the brilliant Greek philosopher, 
 Democritus, and the very recent conceptions of 
 marvelous electronic systems of atomic units, little 
 change in fundamental ideas occurred. Democritus 
 imagined hard, smooth, indivisible particles, the cos- 
 mic bricks which together with empty space made 
 up the multitudinous forms of matter. No prob- 
 lem presented itself. The laboratory and experi- 
 mentai science were unknown. And yet this view 
 was surprisingly similar to the theory so ably set 
 forth by the English schoolmaster, John Dalton, 
 a century and a quarter ago. But there was this 
 vast difference: Dalton’s idea of atoms rested upon 
 a solid basis of experimental fact. Later quanti- 
 tative investigations of scientists demonstrated 
 conclusively that there is some counterpart in 
 reality to these atomic units. Indeed, it became 
 possible to determine with the utmost accuracy the 
 relative weights in which the atoms of the elements 
 combine to form chemical compounds. Berzelius, 
 the great Swedish chemist of a century ago, devoted 
 
968 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 his life largely to this work, and Professor Theo- 
 dore Richards of Harvard has for many years been 
 engaged upon a revision of the atomic weights, 
 which constitutes one of the most accurate and 
 important pieces of research in the history of 
 science. Professor Richards characterizes these 
 atomic numbers as the most significant set of physi- 
 cal constants in the universe. For in the event of 
 the dissolution of our solar system into primeval 
 chaos, it is strictly in accord with these relative 
 weights that the atoms would recombine to form 
 new compounds in the cosmic evolution of another 
 system. Doubtless for all time to come, the atom 
 will remain what it is to-day, the practical working 
 unit of the chemist. 
 
 Before we take a peep within the atom itself, let 
 us consider briefly the great generalization known 
 as the Periodic Law of the elements. A little more 
 than a half century ago, the Russian chemist Men- 
 deléeff and the German Lothar Meyer, working in- 
 dependently of each other, discovered an apparent 
 fundamental relationship existing between the prop- 
 erties of the elements and their atomic weights. 
 In the beautiful language of the late Robert 
 Kennedy Duncan, ‘‘ Just as the pendulum returns 
 again in its swing, just as the moon returns in its 
 orbit, just as the advancing year ever brings the 
 rose of spring, so do the properties of the elements 
 periodically recur as the weights of the atoms 
 rise.’’* When the elements were arranged in the 
 
 *The New Knowledge, by permission of Laidlow Brothers, Inc.~ 
 publishers. 
 
ATOMS, MOLECULES AND ELECTRONS 269 
 
 order of their atomic weights, it was found that 
 every elghth element seemed to repeat in large 
 measure the properties of the eighth element BEE 
 ceding it. | 
 
 The law did not prove to be quite so simple as 
 had at first appeared, but with modifications it has 
 remained to this day as a guide of tremendous im- 
 portance in the correlation of known facts and the 
 discovery of new ones. In the midst of seeming 
 chaos was found a reign of perfect order. The 
 darkness of the unknown broke into the sunlight 
 of knowledge. <A larger glimpse of the eternal 
 methods of the Divine Immanence had been vouch- 
 safed to men. 
 
 Toward the close of the last century, in rapid 
 succession came those wonderful revelations of the 
 cathode rays, X-rays, and radioactivity with their 
 introduction to a real knowledge of atomic struc- 
 tures. One of the first important items of discovery 
 in this new realm of scientific romance was the 
 electron. Of whatever substance the cathode of a 
 Crookes’ tube might consist, it shot off at high 
 velocities small, negatively charged particles, which 
 were designated as electrons. Scarcely in the his- 
 tory of scientific research had a more significant 
 discovery been made. At last it seemed probable 
 that the common primordial stuff out of which the 
 atoms of all the elements are constructed had been 
 found. 
 
 Then Sir J. J. Thomson showed that these new 
 citizens of the subatomic worlds consist of nothing 
 but pure negative electricity, and demonstrated that 
 
270 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 a moving charge of electricity will possess mass 
 and inertia and be characterized by all the proper- 
 ties of matter. Just consider what a revelation this 
 was: hard and fast matter had become intangible, 
 elusive, Imaginary; the atmosphere, the ocean 
 deeps, the rock-ribbed hills, and the substance of 
 living organisms had all been resolved into moving 
 points of electrical energy; matter, except as a con- 
 venient term of reference, had ceased to exist. Or 
 we may say that matter and energy had become 
 identical. Never before had men come so close to 
 a knowledge of ultimate realities. When Thomson 
 had measured the mass of the electron and found it 
 to be about one eighteen-hundredth as heavy as the 
 hydrogen atom, the way was paved for the first 
 real insight into that hitherto undiscovered realm 
 of the subatomic. 
 
 Let us look within this marvelous electrical 
 edifice known as an atom. For a more convenient 
 view, we will magnify it ten billion times and obtain 
 an average diameter of three feet. But what a 
 revelation! Instead of the hard sphere of the 
 ancients, we behold a porous structure, like the 
 universe, very empty. Figuratively speaking, we 
 see a vast solar system with central sun and revolv- 
 ing planets. In amazement, we wonder who ever 
 could have thought it solid. Between the electrons 
 themselves and between them and the central, 
 positively-charged nucleus are vast dreary wastes 
 of space, relatively greater than the celestial spaces 
 between the members of our solar system. An ex- 
 amination of different atomic structures reveals 
 
ATOMS, MOLECULES AND ELECTRONS 271 
 
 a fundamental similarity. In each we find a central 
 nucleus and planetary electrons. One very strik- 
 ing fact, however, compels our attention. Although 
 the nucleus is magnified ten billion times, this posi- 
 tively-charged central ‘‘sun’’ is no larger than a 
 pin-point. Its mass, however, is nearly two 
 thousand times that of an electron. And let it be 
 remembered that we are not dealing with an imag- 
 inary realm. Every statement is based upon facts 
 as incontrovertible as that two and two make four. 
 
 The researches of Moseley, a brilliant young 
 Iinglish physicist who was instantly killed by a 
 Turkish bullet before Gallipoli in 1915, have made 
 it exceedingly probable that there are only ninety- 
 two elements in the universe, of which eighty-seven 
 have been discovered. The atom of hydrogen con- 
 sists of a central nucleus and one electron. Helium 
 has two electrons, and so on in regular order to 
 uranium, which has ninety-two. Upon each nucleus 
 are as many unneutralized charges of positive elec- 
 tricity as there are electrons in its outer sphere of 
 influence. Thus, we now know that the different 
 atoms of the elements are simply varying aggre- 
 gations of these fundamental cosmic units. The 
 vast complexity of the universe resolves itself into 
 a wonderful simplicity. In these recent triumphs 
 of scientific research, we have come very close to 
 the ‘‘Hternal Energy’’ of Herbert Spencer, from 
 which all things proceed. 
 
 In the natural alchemy of radium and the disin- 
 tegration of its atom, we have direct experimental 
 proof of the electronic systems of subatomic struc- 
 
272 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 ture. Radium, spontaneously and without ceasing, 
 gives off three kinds of rays,—alpha, beta and 
 gamma. The alpha rays have been proved to be pos- 
 itively charged atoms of helium shot off with a veloc- 
 ity of about twenty thousand miles per second. The 
 beta rays turned out to be identical with the elec- 
 trons of the Crookes’ tube, projected in a constant 
 stream with velocities ranging from sixty to one 
 hundred eighty thousand miles per second. And 
 the gamma rays have been shown to be X-Rays, 
 differing in no way from those discovered by 
 Rontgen. In this disintegration, new elements 
 arise, and large quantities of energy are liberated, 
 due to the emission of electrons. Other elements, 
 chiefly uranium and thorium, have been shown to 
 possess similar properties. Indeed, uranium is 
 thought to be the ancestor of radium. Possibly, all 
 of the elements may be found to exhibit this re- 
 markable fact of atomic disintegration to some de- 
 gree. Could our view extend backward into the 
 infinite reaches of the past and forward throughout 
 the countless eons of the future, we might behold 
 an evolution of the elements, birth, maturity and 
 decay, comparable with that of organic structures 
 and the possible evolution of solar systems. 
 
 The key to the vast reservoirs of subatomic 
 energy, exhibited in the natural disintegration of 
 radium and known to be locked up within the elec- 
 tronic systems of other elements, is one of the most 
 fascinating goals in the future investigations of 
 these indefatigable searches after the eternal mys- 
 teries of the unseen, According to Professor 
 

 
 Courtesy Scientific American. 
 
 THE ATOM—A MINIATURE SOLAR SYSTEM 
 
 The top view shows an atom of hydrogen magnified until its orbit 
 
 is 186,000,000 miles in diameter. On that scale the nucleus of the 
 
 atom becomes 3.5 miles in diameter and its solitary electron 6,500 
 
 miles. Is it any wonder that when these electrons, moving with 
 
 their tremendous velocities, break loose from their moorings, as in 
 
 the disintegration of radium, they should liberate vast quantities 
 of energy? 
 
iv? 
 
 
 
ATOMS, MOLECULES AND ELECTRONS 273 
 
 Le Bon, of Paris, the energy contained within the 
 smallest French coin is equal to eighty million 
 horse-power. <A single pound of ordinary matter 
 possesses enough latent energy to drive all the 
 ships of our navy. Sir Oliver Lodge estimated that 
 the energy within the atoms of an ounce of water, 
 if liberated, would be able to lift the German fleet 
 sunk at Scapa Flow and place it on the mainland. 
 The power contained in the atoms of a single 
 breath, in the opinion of Robert Kennedy Duncan, 
 would run the workshops of the world. Shali we 
 ever be able to tap these inexhaustible founts of 
 energy and control them in safety for the service of 
 men? Time alone can tell. It may be but the next 
 step in the evolution of our knowledge of the Divine 
 Immanence. The revelations of the present give 
 promise of still more marvelous ones to come. 
 Knowledge, gaining momentum enormously with 
 each new accession, is bound to expand, quite pos- 
 sibly beyond the dreams of the most enlightened 
 seers, in the decades and centuries to follow. Faith 
 in the immeasurable possibilities of this divinely 
 ordered universe and ceaseless knockings at the 
 gates of Eternal Truth will bring revelations of 
 insight and understanding in equal proportion. 
 The invention by Bunsen and Kirchoff of the 
 spectroscope, that marvelous instrument for search- 
 ing out the mysteries of the heavens, has led to 
 revelations of immense significance. The light from 
 nebule and stars caught by this instrument and 
 passed through its dispersing prism at once dis- 
 closes the composition and physical state of its 
 
274 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 source. The atomic structure of each element pro- 
 duces a characteristic spectrum, unduplicated by 
 any other substance. This product of human in- 
 genuity placed before the eye and brain of man 
 reveals the identity of electronic systems, at such 
 infinite distances away that the light which bears 
 the message may have been a half million years 
 en route. In the hands of Sir Norman Lockyer this 
 device made known the existence in the atmosphere 
 of the sun of prodigious quantities of helium. 
 When in later years scientists discovered that 
 helium is an atomic disintegration product of ra- 
 dium, with its accompanying liberation of energy, a 
 possible explanation of the source of solar heat 
 became apparent. This and more the spectroscope 
 has revealed to a host of patient searchers of the 
 celestial spaces. Can we doubt that such rev- 
 elations are as truly divine as any which have 
 occurred in any other age of world history? Can 
 not God speak through the telescope and the spec- 
 troscope as certainly as He can through the mystic 
 visions of seer and prophet? How did men ever get 
 the false idea that the Voice of God has been stilled 
 in these later centuries? No greater error was 
 ever made. The Divine Immanence was never more 
 apparent than it is to-day, and there is no shadow of 
 doubt that its manifestations will continue to in- 
 crease in even larger measure throughout the ages. 
 
 Is it possible to believe that electronic worlds 
 as majestic in their reign of perfect law as the 
 stupendous systems of the starry heavens have 
 come into existence without the guiding thought and 
 
ATOMS, MOLECULES AND ELECTRONS 2795 
 
 purpose of an Intelligent Creator? Could blind 
 chance and the accidental evolutions of these cos- 
 mic units of Eternal Energy result in systems so 
 amenable to our human understanding? Utterly 
 unthinkable is such a monstrous view. Intelligible 
 worlds, whether they be a part of the infinite depths 
 of space or constituent members of the ultra-micro- 
 scopic realms of the unseen, can never proceed from 
 a non-intelligent source. At one with the physical 
 energy of atoms, molecules and electrons must be 
 the spiritual energy of Him who ensouls the universe. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 RELATIVITY AND SPirITUAL REALITIES 
 
 Do tHE bewildering paradoxes of relativity and 
 the new knowledge which Albert Einstein seems to 
 have unveiled for the intellectual contemplation of 
 men have any bearing upon the spiritual realities 
 of the universe? Has absolute knowledge, like ab- 
 solute motion, reached the vanishing point? Just 
 as scientists have resolved indestructible matter 
 into marvelous systems of intangible subatomic 
 energy, is it true that all knowledge is relative? Is 
 there nothing, standing in its own right, funda- 
 mentally and everlastingly unchangeable? Is 
 everything in ceaseless flux? Is the integrity of 
 the universe at stake? Does the Einstein theory, 
 described by some one as ‘‘a contradiction in terms, 
 which, nevertheless, seems to be a demonstrable 
 fact,’’ forever discredit what have been universally 
 regarded as the eternal verities of existence? 
 What is the message of Hinstein to the seekers 
 after spiritual truths? <A little consideration of this 
 epoch-making intellectual achievement may throw 
 light upon these perplexing questions. 
 
 First, let us discover, if possible, something of 
 what this strange doctrine, so upsetting to tradi- 
 tional beliefs, really teaches. Were it not that 
 
 276 
 
RELATIVITY AND SPIRITUAL REALITIES UC 
 
 scientists have verified almost to the letter some of 
 the startling predictions of this disturber of uni- 
 versal peace, we should long since have con- 
 signed Hinstein and his ideas to the realms of pure 
 speculation. But, in this new age of shifting view- 
 points and intellectual upheavals, facts, whatever 
 their import and however revolutionary they may 
 be of ancient forms of thought and belief, can not 
 be ignored. And Einstein introduces us to a mar- 
 velous new world of such entrancing metaphysical 
 possibilities as to compel our interest. 
 
 What is the whence and the whither of this uni- 
 verse in absolute space, the empty void of infinity 
 which begins nowhere and extends beyond the 
 limits of our imaginations? And time, whose be- 
 ginning and end we can not conceive, what is it? 
 Hinstein tells us that the two are indissolubly 
 linked in a four-dimensional time-space universe, 
 and that both time and space are largely fictions of 
 the imagination. Empty space is an absolute un- 
 reality. If there were nothing to put in it, space 
 would be non-existent. And, if nothing ever hap- 
 pened, there would be no need of time. Time is 
 Hinstein’s fourth dimension. An object can not 
 exist in space without also existing in time. Spa- 
 tial existence of any description implies duration. 
 The moment one begins construction of any kind 
 the time-factor enters into it. An event can not 
 be defined without locating it in a three-dimen- 
 sional space and stating its position if a fourth 
 dimension of time. We might locate a human 
 tragedy at the intersection of two streets, on a 
 
278 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 certain floor of a building or in the basement be- 
 low, and at a particular moment of the day. Hach 
 element is essential. And the values assigned to 
 space and time are wholly relative. To the insect 
 at our feet, a tiny mound of earth may be a moun- 
 tain and the insect’s brief tenure of life as three 
 score years and ten. Hours may sometimes seem as 
 fleeting seconds and one short minute as an eter- 
 nity. Upon the tragic rescuers at some scene of 
 grief and woe time makes no impression, while the 
 prisoner at the bar waiting for the verdict of the 
 jury ages with the anguish of suspense. In the 
 presence of a great sorrow all else fades into insig- 
 nificance. Our measurements of time and space are 
 all relative,—relative to artificial measuring rods or 
 mechanical devices and arbitrary units. There is 
 nothing absolutely fixed in the universe. Spatial 
 dimensions are determined by reference to man- 
 made yardsticks, and our measurements of time 
 are relative to the movement of hands over a dial 
 and the motions of the heavenly bodies. 
 
 Again, let us take the idea of motion. There 
 is no such thing as absolute motion. That is 
 EKinstein’s contention. Suppose we drop a heavy 
 object from an airplane. It does not fall to the earth 
 in a perfectly straight line and with uniform 
 velocity. The gravitation of the earth gives to it an 
 accelerated velocity toward its center; it still par- 
 takes of the forward motion of the airplane; the 
 rotation of the earth carries it forward at the rate 
 of one thousand miles an hour at the equator; at the 
 same time the earth is revolving about the sun with 
 
RELATIVITY AND SPIRITUAL REALITIES 279 
 
 a speed of eighteen and a half miles a second; and 
 our whole solar system is being borne toward the 
 star Vega with a constant velocity of twelve miles a 
 second. What seems to the casual observer to be 
 a quite simple path turns out to be a long and tor- 
 tuous curve. The motions of the heavenly bodies 
 are relative. They move with respect to one another, 
 but is there any absolute motion through space? 
 Kinstein says ‘‘No.’? Indeed, were the sun, moon 
 and stars veiled from our view, we could never 
 discover any motion. FEiven as it is, our solar sys- 
 tem is like a swarm of bees flying within a hive. 
 The bees are moving with respect to one another, 
 but it is impossible for them to discover whether 
 their hive is being carried bodily through space. 
 The conclusion of Einstein and his followers is 
 that all motion is relative. There is no such thing 
 as absolute motion, independent of any factors of 
 reference. 
 
 The now famous experiment of Michelson and 
 Morley, performed first in 1886 with apparatus of 
 the utmost precision, had seemed to demonstrate 
 that the earth does not drift through the luminifer- 
 ous ether with which scientists have filled all space, 
 as 1t would do if our planet possessed any absolute 
 motion, and a later experiment of Sir Oliver Lodge 
 has shown that the ether is not carried along with 
 the earth. It was upon this basis of experimental 
 fact that Einstein proceeded to build his theory of 
 relativity. It consists of two fundamental propo- 
 sitions: all motion is relative, and the velocity of 
 light is, not only independent of the motion of its 
 source, but the highest possible velocity to obtain. 
 
280 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 As a result, certain apparently contradictory 
 ideas became irresistible conclusions of scientific 
 thought. Suppose we could move away from the 
 earth with the velocity of light. The hands of a 
 clock left behind us upon the earth would seem to 
 stand still. All would become motionless. Events 
 would cease to occur, We should forever remain 
 abreast of a particular set of light waves, and the 
 succeeding waves bearing the impress of changing 
 events would never overtake us. We should never 
 grow old. If we could move with a velocity greater 
 than that of light, we should overtake the hght 
 waves carrying to the uttermost depths of space the 
 ineffaceable stamp of events occurring in earlier 
 years, and we should actually grow younger. The 
 panorama of history would be reviewed in reverse 
 order. The mass of a body, hitherto regarded as 
 invariable, would assume infinite proportions at 
 the velocity of light. The apparent length of a 
 yardstick, moving directly away from us at this 
 speed, would be reduced to zero. In other words, 
 our judgments of motion, time and space are rela- 
 tive to the observer. Were an observer seated upon 
 a meteor, moving past our earth with a velocity 
 approaching that of light, to witness events here, 
 his impressions would be vastly different from 
 ours. Both would be right, for it is all a matter of 
 relativity. 
 
 Upon a planet whose inhabitants were devoid of 
 the sense of sight, would there be any such thing as 
 light? Yes and no. In the physiological sense, 
 there would not be, but the ether waves would 
 
RELATIVITY AND SPIRITUAL REALITIES 281 
 
 exist just the same. The physical fact of light 
 would be as real as anywhere else in the universe. 
 And so with sound. The roar of Niagara would be 
 like the silence of the grave to an utterly deaf per- 
 son, but the condensations and rarefactions which 
 affect the sense of hearing would be no less real. 
 To a color-blind person or to an individual viewing 
 a landscape through a bit of colored glass, hues 
 seem vastly different from their appearance to one 
 of normal vision. To the trained ear of a Beetho- 
 ven, the rendering of a piece of classical music may 
 give exquisite pleasure, while to the savage it is 
 nothing but noise. In the transparent air of desert 
 climates, distances are wonderfully deceptive to the 
 tenderfoot. He is relating them to the sense im- 
 pressions of another atmosphere. The infant may 
 believe the toy automobile upon the floor to be as 
 large as the distant car upon the highway and a 
 near-by man as tall as the neighboring flagstaff. 
 He has not yet learned to interpret size in relation 
 to distance and perspective. The moon hanging 
 just above the horizon appears unduly large. As a 
 matter of fact the visual angle which it subtends on 
 the retina is no larger than it is when the moon is 
 high in the heavens. We are simply judging of its 
 size in comparison with the known size of some 
 familiar object relatively much nearer than the 
 moon, and the result is a false impression. The 
 spaces between the electrons within that marvelous 
 temple known as an atom are relatively as great 
 as the distances between the members of our solar 
 system, and yet inconcelvably small, Examples 
 
282 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 might be multiplied, but enough have been given to 
 show that much of our knowledge is relative,—rela- 
 tive to the observer, his personality, his state of de- 
 velopment, his view-point, his environment and 
 many other factors. Our knowledge is often par- 
 tial. We see through a glass darkly. We catch a 
 glimpse of the truth, we obtain deeper insights, 
 larger understandings, and never cease to hope for 
 more complete revelations. But absolute truth is 
 seldom reached. 
 
 Kinstein’s theory of gravitation is equally 
 astonishing. For the first time among men, this 
 bold thinker has had the temerity to deny the ex- 
 istence of the universal force of gravitation. Such 
 a force, he regards as wholly hypothetical. <A 
 planet may follow an elliptical path about the sun 
 and a body fall to the earth, not because of any 
 mysterious attracting force, but because these paths 
 prove to be the lines of least resistance through a 
 space which has been warped and curved by the 
 presence of large masses of matter. How space 
 can be curved, is as unpicturable as are the axioms 
 of geometry. But one may be as true as the other. 
 To quote from my Masters of Science and Inven- 
 tion, ‘‘If we should find that a marble placed at 
 any point near the walls of an apparently level floor 
 always rolled to the center of the room, either one 
 of two possible explanations might be given. There 
 is some force attracting the marble, or the floor is 
 eurved. So with gravitation. Hither there is some 
 force of attraction common to all matter, or space 
 is curved. Newton took the former view. Einstein 
 has chosen the latter,’’ 
 
RELATIVITY AND SPIRITUAL REALITIES 283 
 
 An essential item in Hinstein’s curved-space 
 theory is the hitherto incredible assumption that a 
 ray of light in passing near to a large mass of mat- 
 ter like our sun should be warped out of its 
 straight-line path. Eclipse observations have since 
 abundantly justified this conclusion. And further- 
 more the angle of deflection of the ray of light from 
 a distant star has been shown to be very close to 
 that predicted in advance by Einstein. It is this 
 remarkable coincidence, together with the explan- 
 ation of a centuries-old discrepancy in the orbit 
 of Mercury, which has prevented the side-tracking 
 of Einstein and his views. He has looked at the 
 universe from a new angle, and has undoubtedly 
 approached more closely to a knowledge of certain 
 ultimate realities than has any other thinker. 
 Again, it is a matter of relativity. 
 
 But what have these considerations to do with 
 the spiritual realities of the universe? Just this: 
 that judgments of spiritual truths may be at many 
 points just as relative as they seem to be in other 
 spheres of thought. Outside of the truths of rea- 
 son, there is very little that can be absolutely 
 proved. That two and two are four is universally 
 true. Its validity is independent of time or place. 
 This mathematical fact is a rational product of the 
 inherent process of human thought. Its denial is 
 utterly unthinkable. And so, too, the axioms of 
 geometry. Things which are equal to the same 
 thing must be equal to each other. Such a proposi- 
 tion admits of no argument. It towers above the 
 great mass of human concepts like a mountain peak 
 
284 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 above the lowlands. Just to the extent to which 
 our judgments of scientific and spiritual truths 
 conform to these standards, they, too, are univer- 
 sally true. Often, however, the criteria by which 
 we form them are wholly relative. 
 
 Must the mind blindly grope its way through 
 these devious paths of human thought, unaided by 
 any guiding principle? Is there no test of truth? 
 Can we never know when our intellectual processes 
 have reached a stable abiding-place? Borden P. 
 Bowne, one of the most trenchant philosophers of 
 modern times, has laid down this fundamental 
 axiom: Whatever is necessary to the mind’s under- 
 standing of the facts 1s necessary to the facts 
 themselves. All else is relative, changing, subject 
 to constant revision. This does not mean, however, 
 that the whims of capricious thinkers, the idle 
 imaginings of unclear thought, find their counter- 
 part in reality. Only those concepts whose denial 
 would do violence to human reason may be re- 
 garded as true. To me, the idea of God is 
 absolutely essential to a rational interpretation of 
 the universe. And so is belief in immortality as 
 fundamental as the scientific fact of the conserva- 
 tion of energy. ‘These are no more relative than 
 that two and two are four. But that we have 
 reached the ultimate truth concerning the struc- 
 ture of matter is an unproved hypothesis. Much 
 has already been discovered, but knowledge of the 
 final reality is still in the future. It is contingent 
 upon further investigation and relative to the in- 
 terpretation of new facts. The story of the rocks, 
 

 
 Coakicnn ick Alife A ete n. 
 THE RELATIVITY OF SPACE 
 
 The upper view shows a triangle drawn in a plane of two dimen- 
 sions. In attempting to fit this sheet of paper to a sphere the two- 
 dimensional space is distorted. In a somewhat analogous manner 
 our three-dimensional space may be distorted in the presence of a 
 large mass of matter like the sun. To an imaginary being whose 
 ideas of space are relative to a two-dimensional plane the distor- 
 tion of the paper will be just as disconcerting as Einstein’s baffling 
 notion of the warping of space is to us, 
 

 
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RELATIVITY AND SPIRITUAL REALITIES 285 
 
 as told by the imperishable fossil records from 
 preceding ages, makes the fundamental truth of 
 evolution an irresistible conclusion. But the pre- 
 cise methods by which the Almighty has carried out 
 this cosmic process are still uncertain. They are 
 relative to human fallibility and to a multitude of 
 shifting factors. 
 
 Applying this doctrine of relativity to the inter- 
 pretation of the Scriptures, we see at once that 
 belief in the literal truth of many of their state- 
 ments is not an essential article of religious faith. 
 The mold in which this literature was cast was 
 warped by human view-points. Its ideas were rela- 
 tive to the age in which it was produced. Often 
 sublime, vehicles of transcendent spiritual truths 
 which have outridden every storm of strife and 
 passion, these ancient categories of human expres- 
 sion are found to be out of harmony with the larger 
 horizons and deeper insights of a later age. The 
 fundamental truths which they convey are as vital 
 as ever, but the outgrown husks in which they were 
 enshrouded have become ‘‘as the chaff which the 
 wind driveth away.’’ No better example of the 
 relativity of religious view-points can be found than 
 that disclosed in the evolution of the idea of God, 
 discussed elsewhere in these pages. The various 
 stages of this evolution reflect the characteristic 
 modes of thought and the changing degrees of 
 moral and spiritual insight of their respective 
 times. The Story of Creation, wholly relative to the 
 age of scientific ignorance and superstition in 
 which it was formulated, has now become obsolete. 
 
286 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 We are at liberty to retain the fundamental spir- 
 itual truth of the divine order of the universe and 
 reject the ancient form in which it was stated. We 
 may hold fast to the ‘‘spirit’’ of religious teachings, 
 and at the same time disregard the ‘‘letter,’’ which 
 ‘‘killeth.’?? That is the gospel of science and the 
 message of the doctrine of relativity as applied to 
 the Scriptures. In the light of this new vision, old 
 truths become more real, mental horizons broaden, 
 and spiritual realities emerge, transfigured with a 
 larger and truer meaning. 
 
 If the message of Hinstein had done nothing 
 more than to free the mind from its moorings to 
 the fossilized forms of traditional thought, it would 
 be an achievement of immense significance. That 
 his ideas have also found a large measure of scien- 
 tific confirmation demonstrates once more that the 
 mental processes of a great thinker find their coun- 
 terpart in the thought of Him whose life ensouls the 
 universe. No better proof of the spirituality of all 
 creation need be given. This latest voice of the 
 masters of science speaks of truths as everlasting 
 as those conveyed in the utterances of seer and 
 prophet. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 Tue FairHs oF THE SCIENTISTS 
 
 Wuar have been the religious faiths of the out- 
 standing scientists of the world, past and present? 
 Is it possible for a man to devote his life to the 
 pursuit of physical knowledge and be a Christian 
 still? Is a larger understanding of the eternal 
 truths of God’s universe incompatible with His wor- 
 ship? Did God intend that ignorance of His cre- 
 ation should be a chief qualification for His service? 
 Need we fear that a larger understanding of the 
 revelations of the Divine Immanence will place in 
 jeopardy the spiritual welfare of the race? Must 
 we cease our inquiry into the ways and laws of 
 Nature and regard knowledge as a static thing, a 
 stranger to progress and growth? Are the super- 
 stitious imaginings of infant peoples to be placed 
 above the revelations of the telescope, the spectro- 
 scope and the microscope? Must we disregard 
 utterly the plain story of the rocks? Are we to 
 believe that God would implant in the soul of man 
 this insatiable thirst for knowledge and then con- 
 demn him for his legitimate efforts to gratify it? 
 Is there not something wrong with a conception of 
 God which is susceptible of such an interpretation? 
 And is it true that the brightest stars in the firma- 
 
 287 
 
288 - THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 ment of scientific achievement are symbols of 
 agnosticism and atheism? A brief review of this 
 field will serve to clarify certain widespread mis- 
 conceptions. 
 
 Modern science began with Copernicus and Gali- 
 leo, both devout believers in the divinity of man and 
 in the spiritual truth of the Scriptures. Even the 
 narrow-visioned persecution of the Church could 
 not shake Galileo’s faith in God. This prophet of 
 a new age, who with the sweep of his telescope 
 across the heavens brought to ruin the celestial 
 spheres of the ancients and the Scriptural astron- 
 omy of the early church, could see nothing incon- 
 sistent with such astounding revelations and a 
 theistic conception of the universe. And let us re- 
 member that the new knowledge unfolded by this 
 astronomer of the Florentine hills was, in that time 
 of crudity, much more startling in its religious 
 signification than are the present-day teachings of 
 sclence regarding evolution and miracles. In that 
 age of the extreme literal interpretation of the 
 Scriptures, the voice of Galileo was as one erying 
 in the wilderness, and yet it was the voice of one 
 of the most enlightened seers of any time. 
 
 In the very year of Galileo’s death Sir Isaac 
 Newton was born. To him it was given to carry 
 forward the work of the great Italian and to estab- 
 lish the new heavens upon the bed-rock of absolute 
 law. Still, in the view of this intellectual giant, the 
 reign of celestial law did not encroach upon the 
 prerogatives of God. Although he was denounced 
 as an enemy of the Deity, no more sincere Christian 
 
THE FAITHS OF THE SCIENTISTS 289 
 
 ever lived than this British physicist who first ex- 
 plained the motions of the planets and _ their 
 satellites and immeasurably broadened men’s con- 
 ception of this vast universe, of which our solar 
 system is but a tiny fragment. If new and revolu- 
 tionary truth regarding the heavenly bodies did not 
 disturb the serene religious faith of one of the most 
 gifted thinkers of any age, why should an increase 
 in our knowledge of Nature precipitate spiritual 
 unrest and turmoil in the minds of any to-day? The 
 memory of Sir Isaac Newton, shining like a beacon 
 light across the intervening centuries, should be a 
 source of strength and inspiration to any who are 
 now meeting with obstacles in the form of ignorance 
 and stagnant thought similar to those which he en- 
 countered nearly three hundred years ago. 
 
 Among that little group of early workers in the 
 field of modern chemistry, was Joseph Priestley, 
 co-discoveror with Scheele of oxygen. Both were 
 devout men, and Priestley was a clergyman. This 
 new world of chemical knowledge, utterly antagon- 
 istic, as it was to alchemy and its mystical 
 implications, was not regarded as opposed to the 
 spiritual teachings of Scripture. Because men in 
 Bible times had gained no inkling of atomic mys- 
 teries and did not find in sacred literature a chemi- 
 eal theology, the apostles of scientific research in 
 this field have been relatively freer from the perse- 
 cutions of ecclesiastical dogmatists. 
 
 Among the naturalists of a century ago, the 
 most distinguished was Baron de Cuvier, the 
 founder of comparative anatomy. A man of intense 
 
290 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 religious convictions, he could not bring himself 
 to accept the doctrines of evolution, as advanced 
 by Lamarck, and yet he clearly recognized that 
 there have been successive geological epochs in the 
 development of the animal life upon the earth. The 
 work of the great Frenchman upon extinct species 
 of animals paved the way for later views, and he 
 himself held to a doctrine of special creation to- 
 tally at variance with the orthodox teachings of 
 Scripture. According to his theory, great catastro- 
 phic upheavals at intervals of the geologic past 
 destroyed the animal life upon the earth and re- 
 newed acts of special creation in each instance 
 replaced it with other species. His investigations, 
 however, showed him that the life now present upon 
 the globe differs radically from that of preceding 
 ages, a view quite contrary to that of Scripture. 
 And yet, this anatomist who could reconstruct the 
 complete skeleton of an extinct mammoth from a 
 single bone, did not reject the spiritual truths of 
 the Bible nor see any essential lack of harmony be- 
 tween his own views and those of Genesis. And the 
 religious zeal of Cuvier was typical of that of other 
 noted scientists of his time. 
 
 Lamarck, the distinguished predecessor of Dar- 
 win and the founder of the first comprehensive 
 theory of organic evolution, could assert with per- 
 fect Christian faith, ‘‘Surely nothing exists except 
 by the will of the Sublime Author of all things.’’ 
 Kiven Darwin could not bring himself to reject the 
 thought of immortality. It is true that Huxley, 
 the great popularizer of evolutionary doctrines of 
 
THE FAITHS OF THE SCIENTISTS 991 
 
 a half-century ago, coined the word ‘‘agnosticism’’ 
 to express his own nebulous views of God and im- 
 mortality. He neither affirmed nor denied. But 
 Huxley lived and worked in the heyday of material- 
 istic tendencies which swept the earth during the 
 second half of the last century. His views were a 
 product of his times. And so were those of Ernest 
 Haeckel, the foremost exponent of a thorough- 
 eoing mechanistic naturalism. It is heartening to 
 know that Alfred Russell Wallace, independent and 
 simultaneous formulator with Darwin of the theory 
 of natural selection and a distinguished scholar in 
 the fields of biological, physical, astronomical and 
 geological science, rejected the mechanistic inter- 
 pretation of the world, He did not regard life and 
 man as mere accidents. Mund, in his view, was the 
 flower of creation, for the realization of which even 
 the stars in the heavens exist. 
 
 Of the great naturalists of the last century, no 
 one would dissent from placing Louis Agassiz in 
 the very forefront. His whole life from earliest 
 boyhood is the story of a passionate devotion to 
 the study of Nature. It is interesting to know that, 
 starting as an atheist, his broad scientific re- 
 searches led him step by step to a fervent belief in 
 a divine purpose and order everywhere in the uni- 
 verse. His very humanity, however, his kindred 
 feeling for every living thing, would not permit him 
 to accept the Darwinian theory of evolution, al- 
 though his students were early converts, and, had 
 Agassiz lived a decade longer, there is little reason 
 to suppose that his keen mind could have with- 
 
292 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 stood the weight of evidence, The significant thing 
 to observe is that the pursuit of science led him to, 
 not away from, God. 
 
 Among the physicists of the first half of the last 
 century, Michael Faraday easily stands first, His 
 researches in the field of electromagnetism alone 
 will rank him as one of the greatest scientific dis- 
 coverers of all time. And yet, with all his deep 
 insight into the mysteries of physical science, his 
 was one of the most gentle and Christlike charac- 
 ters to be found in the pages of history. To the 
 end of his long and useful life, he preserved a 
 simple faith in God and in the eternal verities of 
 the Christian religion. Of a little later period were 
 Lord Kelvin and James Clerk-Maxwell, whose 
 names will long remain as symbols of intellectual 
 leadership. In his address as president of the 
 British Association for the Advancement of Science 
 at its forty-first annual session, Lord Kelvin said: 
 ‘“‘Overpoweringly strong proofs of intelligence and 
 benevolent design lie all about us; and if ever per- 
 plexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn 
 us away from them for a time, they come back upen 
 us with irresistible force, showing us through na- 
 ture the influence of a free will and teaching ua 
 that all living beings depend on one ever-acting 
 Creator and Ruler.’’? And again he wrote: ‘‘I be- 
 lieve that the more thoroughly science is studied 
 the further does it take us from anything compar- 
 able to atheism.’’ Still, this eminent British 
 physicist was the author of theories concerning the 
 age of the earth and a staunch believer in others 
 
THE FAITHS OF THE SCIENTISTS 293 
 
 which totally discredit a belief in the scientific ac- 
 curacy of the first chapters of Genesis. Maxwell, 
 who demonstrated the electromagnetic nature of 
 light and was a mathematical scientist second only 
 to Newton, said: ‘‘I have looked into most philos- 
 ophical systems, and I have seen that none will 
 work without God.’’ Oersted and Ohm, important 
 discoverers in the field of electricity and life-long 
 students of physical science, expressed their deep 
 convictions in the theistic origin and nature of the 
 world. 
 
 Immanuel Kant, one of the most profound 
 thinkers of any time and the anticipator of the 
 Nebular Hypothesis of Laplace, was a firm believer 
 in God. It was this great philosopher who said: 
 “Two things fill me with unspeakable awe,—the 
 starry heavens above and the moral law within.’’ 
 John Dalton, the father of the atomic theory of the 
 elements, was of simple Quaker faith. Schwann, 
 the founder of the cell theory of organic structure, 
 Claude Bernard, a pioneer in modern physiology, 
 and Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination, could 
 see nothing inconsistent with the pursuit of science 
 and the integrity of religious faith. Sir Charles 
 Lyell, the first great geologist and an early con- 
 vert to the theory of evolution, was a devout 
 Christian to the end of his days. James Dwight 
 Dana, foremost among early American geologists, 
 after resisting the truth of the Darwinian view for 
 many years, became an enthusiastic supporter of 
 it, and this without interference with his Christian 
 faith. Gregor Mendel, the Austrian monk, who made 
 
294 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 discoveries of farreaching significance concerning 
 the laws of heredity and who founded the science 
 of genetics, did not allow his scientific pursuits to 
 disturb his religious beliefs. 
 
 If ever there was a modern apostle of light, a 
 great scientist and Christian explorer of God’s 
 universe of truth, that man was Louis Pasteur, the 
 father of the germ theory of disease and repeatedly 
 chosen by the populace of France as the most illus- 
 trious of all Frenchmen. No more worthy testi- 
 mony to his deep religious conviction can be found 
 than that contained in his own words, carved over 
 his tomb: ‘‘Happy is he who carries a God within 
 him, an ideal of beauty to which he is obedient—an 
 ideal of art, an ideal of science, an ideal of the 
 fatherland, an ideal of the virtues of the Gospel.’’ 
 
 Sir William Perkin, discoverer of the first coal- 
 
 tar dye and distinguished chemist, in a review of his 
 life shortly before his death in 1907, said: ‘‘ . . 
 1 thank God, to whom I owe a for all His 
 goodness to me, and ascribe to Him all the praise 
 and honor.’’ Benne Harrow, in his biographi- 
 cal sketch of this man, who opened up a new con- 
 tinent of unexplored chemical wealth, paid to him 
 the following tribute: ‘‘A blameless Christian, a 
 perfect gentleman, a fine type of the old conserva- 
 tive, he lived unobtrusively, worked quietly and 
 intensively, worshiped God, and respected his 
 neighbor.’’ 
 
 Of the British scientists of our own time, no 
 more illustrious trio could be named than Lord 
 Rayleigh, Sir William Crookes, and Sir Oliver 
 
THE FAITHS OF THE SCIENTISTS 295 
 
 Lodge. It is difficult now to know whether Sir 
 Oliver Lodge will be remembered in the years to 
 come chiefly for his large contributions to physical 
 science, particularly in the fields of radioactivity 
 and atomic structure, or for his researches in the 
 realm of psychic phenomena and for his efforts to 
 establish the truth of immortality. Sir William 
 Crookes, who first introduced the scientific world to 
 a knowledge of electric discharges in high vacua 
 and paved the way for a veritable Niagara of 
 hitherto undreamed-of discovery, was also a psy- 
 chic investigator and a staunch supporter of the 
 spiritualistic conception of the universe. Lord 
 Rayleigh, under whose direction Sir Wiliam Ram- 
 say made his classic investigation of the rare gases 
 of the atmosphere, was a devout follower of re- 
 ligion. | 
 
 Turning to the men of science in our own 
 country to-day, we can cite no more distinguished 
 figure than that of Robert A. Millikan, winner of 
 the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923. Not long ago, 
 he said: ‘‘Kivery one who reflects believes in one 
 way or another in God.’’ To him, it is ‘‘as obvious 
 as breathing that every man who is sufficiently in 
 his senses to recognize his own inability to compre- 
 hend the problem of existence, to understand 
 whence he himself came and whither he is going 
 must in the very admission of that ignorance and 
 finiteness recognize the existence of a Something, 
 a Power, a Being in whom and because of whom he 
 himself lives and moves and has his being.”’ 
 
 Doctor Millikan has also made a real contribu- 
 
296 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 tion to the contemporary discussion of this subject 
 by showing in his paper on ‘‘Science and Religion’? 
 that many of America’s foremost scientists are 
 earnest Christians. Among those he names are: 
 Doctor Charles D. Wallcot, head of the Smithson- 
 ian Institution in Washington; Henry Fairfield 
 Osborn, director of the Natural History Museum 
 of New York and one of the foremost biologists and 
 experts on primitive man in the world; Edwin G, 
 Conklin, distinguished evolutionist of Princeton; 
 John C. Merriam, president of the Carnegie Insti- 
 tution and our country’s foremost paleontologist; 
 Michael Pupin, whose book From Immigrant to 
 Inventor has made him known to a host of 
 readers; John Coulter, chief among American 
 botanists; the eminent chemists A. A. and W. A. 
 Noyes; James A. Breasted, leading archeologist 
 of America; and C. G. Abbott, home secretary of 
 the National Academy of Sciences and distin- 
 guished astronomer. 
 
 In 1923 a statement regarding the relation of 
 science to Christian faith was formulated and 
 signed by thirty-five prominent Americans, includ- 
 ing fifteen scientists, Its concluding sentence 
 reads as follows: ‘‘It is a sublime conception of 
 God which is furnished by science, and one wholly 
 consonant with the highest ideals of religion, when 
 if represents Him as revealing Himself through in- 
 breathing of life into its constituent matter, 
 culminating in man with his spiritual nature and 
 all his Godlike powers.”’ 
 
 Doctor Henry F. Osborn, in his little book, Evo- 
 
 4 
 
THE FAITHS OF THE SCIENTISTS 297 
 
 lution and Religion, says, ‘‘The moral principle 
 inherent in evolution is that nothing can be gained 
 in this world without effort; the ethical principle 
 inherent in evolution is that the best only has the 
 right to survive; the spiritual principle in evolution 
 is the evidence of beauty, of order, and of design in 
 the daily myriad of miracles to which we owe our ex- 
 istence.’’ It is of the utmost significance, too, 
 that Doctor Osborn, whose life has been devoted 
 to the scientific aspects of life and Nature, should 
 say, ‘‘ . . . purpose pervades all Nature, from 
 nebula to man. Herbert Spencer may call it the 
 Unknowable; the naturalist with Wordsworth may 
 eall it Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe.”’ 
 
 Professor Edward L. Rice, of Ohio Wesleyan 
 University, in his address before the American 
 Association for the Advancement of Science, in De- 
 cember, 1924, said: ‘‘ .. . an increasing number 
 of our leading scientists are publicly proclaiming 
 their own theistic philosophy, and emphasizing 
 anew the essential harmony of a progressive scien- 
 tific belief with real religion. J rejoice in the public 
 utterances of such men as Conklin, Coulter, Millikan 
 and Osborn. May their tribe increase! And may 
 their efforts combine with the increasing popular 
 interest in science toward the bringing in of the day 
 when a more scientific religion and a more religious 
 science shall join in a common welcome to truth, 
 whether revealed in Nature, in human life, or in the 
 Bible, and shall present an unbroken front in the 
 struggle for the higher evolution of the human 
 race.’? *: 
 
 *Science, March 6, 1925. 
 
298 THROUGH SCIENCE TO GOD 
 
 Doctor J. B. S. Haldane, eminent British scien- 
 tist of the present day and author of Daedalus, 
 states his belief in the spirituality of the universe in 
 the following words: ‘‘God is with us, in us, and 
 everywhere around us, as Jesus taught.’’ No one 
 ean read the works of Doctor J. A. Thomson, the 
 author of The Outline of Science, without knowing 
 how deep are his convictions of the theistic origin 
 and nature of the universe. | 
 
 Professor Theodore W. Richards of Harvard, 
 America’s foremost chemist, has indicated his faith 
 in the spiritual nature of life in the following lines 
 taken from a Phi Beta Kappa address delivered by 
 him at Cambridge in 1916: ‘‘There is, in truth, no 
 conflict between the ideals of science and other high 
 ideals of human life. With deep insight, a poetic 
 thinker on life’s problems, in the opening lines of a 
 sonnet, has said: 
 
 Fear not to go where fearless Science leads, 
 Who holds the keys of God. What reigning light 
 Thine eyes discern in that surrounding night 
 Whence we have comesiei) (oie eae aie te 
 Thy soul will never find that Wrong is Right.’’ 
 
 No, the pursuit of science does not destroy faith 
 in God and religion and in the noble ideals of life. 
 That some scientists are disbelievers, or agnostics, 
 is no more significant than that many theologians 
 have shut their minds against the revelations of 
 scientific truth, A man may follow the path of 
 truth wherever it may lead with the perfect assur- 
 ance that he will find God at the journey’s end. 
 
THE FAITHS OF THE SCIENTISTS 299 
 
 Whatever unbelief may prevail to-day, whether it 
 be religious or scientific, we may be perfectly sure 
 that, somewhere, sometime, all will understand and 
 that scientist and Christian prophet may unite in 
 one purpose and a common faith, 
 
 THE END 
 
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INDEX 
 
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 ya) } 
 
 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbott, C. G., 296 
 
 Abbott, Lyman, 58, 116 
 
 Abraham, 154 
 
 Acquired characters, 69, 81 
 
 Adam, 46, 161, 175 
 
 Adams, 254 
 
 African man-like ape, 130 
 
 Agassiz, 291 
 
 Age, Bronze, 142 
 
 Age, First Glacial, 128 
 
 Age of earth, 26 
 
 Age of metals, 123 
 
 Age, Polished Stone, 141 
 
 Age, Rough Stone, 125, 137 
 
 Ages, Ice, 120, 125, 137 
 
 Ages, Metal, 123, 141 
 
 Airplane, 218, 248 
 
 Albert the Great, 39, 221 
 
 Alchemists, 238 
 
 Alchemy, 240 
 
 American Museum of Natural 
 History, 106 
 
 Amos, 224 
 
 Anatomy, comparative, 98, 126 
 
 Anaxagoras, 251 
 
 Ancestor worship, 171, 173 
 
 Andromeda, 15 
 
 Angels, 41, 50 
 
 Antiquity of man, 29, 124, 131 
 
 Ape, 55, 103, 126, 129 
 
 Archean Age, 25 
 
 Archeology, 121, 156, 162 
 
 Archeopteryx, 105 
 
 Argentina, 73 
 
 Aristarchus, 38 
 
 Arkwright, 240 
 
 Armistice Day, 244 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 150 
 
 Arrhenius, 112 
 
 Artificial breeding, 76 
 
 Asshurbanipal, 157 
 
 Assyria, 158, 165 
 
 Atlantis, 23 
 
 Atoms, 17, 32, 34, 53, 183, 263 
 
 Augustine, St., 39, 40, 174, 177, 
 206, 253 
 
 Aurora Borealis, 15, 264 
 
 Automobile, 218 
 
 Bach, 204 
 
 Bacon, Roger, 198 
 Baly, 112 
 
 Bateson, 87 
 Beagle, 72, 76 
 Bede, 39 
 Beethoven, 204 
 Bell, 244, 261 
 Bergmann, 207 
 Bernard, 293 
 Berzelius, 261, 267 
 Betelgeuse, 21 
 Bible, 37, 147, 162 
 Bison, 132, 133 
 Black, 207 
 
 Blood tests, 103, 126 
 Bowne, 284 
 
 Boyle, 207 
 Brachiopods, 104 
 
 303 
 
304 
 
 Branches, animal, 93 
 Breasted, 296 
 Bronze Age, 142 
 Bruno, 85 
 
 Bunsen, 261, 273 
 Burbank, 76, 97 
 
 Cadman, 115 
 
 Calvin, 45 
 
 Camel, 106 
 
 Canadian Geological Survey, 29 
 
 Canidae, 94 
 
 Canis, 94 
 
 Carboniferous forests, 65 
 
 Carlyle, 169 
 
 Carnivora, 94 
 
 Cartwright, 241 
 
 Carty, 244 
 
 Catastrophes, natural, 66 
 
 Cave bear, 124 
 
 Cave men, 139 
 
 Cavendish, 207, 239, 261 
 
 Celestial spheres, 41, 210 
 
 Cenozoic Era, 106 
 
 Chaldean civilization, 35, 158 
 
 Chaldean legends, 41 
 
 Chamberlain, 18 
 
 Chance, 14, 30, 31, 80, 90, 18¢, 
 240, 260 
 
 Christ, 38, 169, 227-35 
 
 Christian faith, 113, 126, 150, 
 199, 208, 210, 287 
 
 Church and science, 196, 205 
 
 Church fathers, 37, 199 
 
 Classification, animal, 93 
 
 Clerk-Maxwell, 292 
 
 Coal, 65 
 
 Columbus, 40, 86, 194 
 
 Comets, 17, 38, 208, 258 
 
 Comparative anatomy, 98, 126 
 
 Comte, 54, 258 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Conklin, 296 
 
 Conservation of energy, 191, 284 
 
 Copernican theory, 43, 47, 68 
 
 Copernicus, 38, 45, 48, 56, 200, 
 208, 238, 250, 288 
 
 Corners of the earth, 37 
 
 Coulter, 296, 297 
 
 Cro-Magnon man, 138, 146 
 
 Crompton, 241 
 
 Crookes, 190, 246, 294 
 
 Crookes’ tube, 269 
 
 Crustaceans, 104 
 
 Crystalline spheres, 50 
 
 Curie, Madame, 247, 261 
 
 Cuvier, 66, 69, 184, 289 
 
 Dalton, 61, 267, 293 
 
 Dana, 293 
 
 Dante, 39, 42 
 
 Dart, 130 
 
 Darwin, Charles, Ch. III, 192, 
 209, 236, 290 
 
 Darwin, Erasmus, 61 
 
 Darwinian view to-day, 87 
 
 David, 225 
 
 Da Vinci, 61. 
 
 Davy, 240 
 
 Dawn man, 134 
 
 Dead, the, 186 
 
 Deluge, 67, 156, 159 
 
 Democritus, 61, 267 
 
 Descartes, 208, 238 
 
 Descent of man, 127 
 
 De Vries, 90 
 
 Dogs, 94, 96 
 
 Domestication, 96 
 
 Doors of heaven, 37 
 
 Duncan, 268, 273 
 
 Dynasties, Egyptian, 121 
 
 Egyptian civilization, 35, 121, 
 155 
 
INDEX 305 
 Finstein, 20, 248, 276 Genera, 93 
 Electricity, 189, 239 Geographical distribution of ani- 
 
 Electrons, 17, 32, 34, 53, 246, 263 
 
 Elephant, 106, 133 
 
 Elijah, 224, 225 
 
 Blisha, 224, 225 
 
 Elisworth, 29 
 
 Embryology, 99 
 
 Emerson, 169, 236 
 
 Empyrean, 42 
 
 Eohippus, 106 
 
 Eoliths, 128 
 
 Ether, 32, 86, 189, 242 
 
 Eve, 161, 175 
 
 Evidences of evolution, 93 
 
 Evolution, 17, 21, 31, 52, 202, 
 209, 258 
 
 Extinct species, 63, 66 
 
 Ezekiel, 224 
 
 Families, 93 
 
 Faraday, 198, 236, 240, 261, 292 
 Fire mist, 13, 52, 192 
 Firmament, 36 
 
 First law of motion, 251 
 
 Fiske, 170 
 
 Fissipedia, 94 
 
 Forum, 53, 55, 140 
 
 Fosdick, 203, 212 
 
 Fossils, 62 
 
 Fourth dimension, 277 
 
 Franklin, 56, 233, 261 
 
 Fruit of the Family Tree, 70 
 Fulton, 261 
 
 Fundamentalists, 54, 55, 85, 143 
 
 Galapagos Islands, 73, 108 
 
 Galileo, 42, 44, 56, 83, 86, 163, 
 198, 200, 208, 217, 222, 236, 
 238, 250, 286 
 
 Garden of Eden, 96, 158, 161 
 
 mals, 108 
 Geography, 41, 86 
 Geologie story, 22 
 Germplasm, 81, 91 
 Ghosts, 171, 186 
 Gill slits, 100 
 Giraffe, 70 
 Glacial Age, First, 128 
 God, 168, 176 
 Goethe, 61 
 Gospels, 228, 230 
 Gray, 84 
 Greek idea of God, 173 
 Grimaldi race, 139 
 Gruner, 25 
 
 Haeckel, 84, 97, 259, 291 
 Haldane, 58, 297 
 Halley, 253 
 
 Handel, 204 
 
 Harding, 244 
 Hargreaves, 240 
 Harvey, 56, 258 
 
 Heat, 189 
 
 Heat of sun, 27 
 Heidelberg man, 133 
 Helium, 29, 271, 272 
 Helmholtz, 28, 112, 245 
 Heredity, 77, 80, 88 
 Herschel, 254 
 
 Hertz, 245, 261 
 
 Higher criticism, 166 
 Hilare, St., 61 
 
 Hillis, 53, 55, 117 
 Hippopotamus, 124, 132, 134 
 History of evolution, 60 
 Holmes, 119 
 
 Hominidx, 127 
 
 Homo, 127, 129 
 
306 
 
 Hooker, 84 
 
 Horse, 106, 132, 133 
 
 Hosea, 225 
 
 Hrdlieka, 130 
 
 Huxley, 84, 106, 136, 179, 290 
 Huyghens, 238 
 
 Hyena, 124 
 
 Ice ages, 120, 125, 137 
 Immortality, 19, 185, 187, 284 
 Inge, Dean, 200 
 Inquisition, 44, 47 
 Insectivora, 129 
 Insects, 104 
 Inspiration, 162-66 
 Isaiah, 37, 229 
 
 & 
 
 Java, 109, 131 
 Java man, 131 
 Jefferson, 57, 114 
 Jehovah, 154, 159, 172 
 Jenner, 241, 293 
 Jeremiah, 224 
 Jericho, 225 
 Jesuits, 46 
 
 Jesus, 172, 227-32 
 John, St., 228-30 
 Jordan, 225 
 Joshua, 225 
 Jupiter, 43 
 
 Kant, 170, 293 
 
 Keith, 131, 134 
 
 Kellogg, 58 
 
 Kelvin, 28, 112, 261, 292 
 Kepler, 48, 181, 208, 238, 250 
 Kepler’s laws, 48, 49, 253 
 Kirchoff, 273 
 
 Knudson, 164, 165 
 
 Krakatoa, 109 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lamarck, 56, 69, 81, 95, 290 
 Lane, 28 
 
 Laplace, 16, 18, 170, 293 
 Lavoisier, 207, 240, 261 
 
 Law of gravitation, 16, 30, 48, 
 
 86, 222 
 Le Conte, 98 
 Legend, 34 
 Legends of Genesis, 153 
 Leibnitz, 252 
 Leverrier, 184, 254 
 Life, mystery of, 111 
 Light, 189 
 Lincoln, 72, 165, 198, 236 
 Linneus, 175 
 Lion, 133 
 Lister, 243 
 Lockyer, 29, 274 
 Locomotive, 218 
 Lodge, 181, 257, 273, 279, 295 
 Lot, 225 
 Lucifer, 42 
 Luke, St., 227, 229, 230 
 Lupus, 94 
 Luther, 38, 44, 198 
 Lyell, 26, 67, 84, 208, 293 
 Lyra, 15 
 
 Magellan, 40, 86 
 
 Malthus, 77 
 
 Mammals, 94, 106, 108, 127 
 Mammoth, 66, 106, 124, 132 
 Man, rise of, 120 
 
 Man’s ancestry, 126 
 Man’s divinity, 145 
 Marconi, 245 
 
 Mark, St., 227, 229, 230 
 Marsh, 107 
 
 Master Mind, 14, 75 
 Mathews, Shailer, 211 
 Matthew, St., 227, 229, 230 
 
INDEX 
 
 Melanchthon, 38, 45 
 Mendel, 92, 293 
 Mendeléeff, 261, 268 
 Menes, 121 
 
 Merriam, 296 
 
 Mesozoic era, 105 
 
 Metal Ages, 123, 141 
 Meteoric matter, 17, 18, 112 
 Meteors, 28 
 
 Meyer, Lothar, 268 
 Michelangelo, 204 
 Michelson, 279 
 Microscope, 237, 287 
 Middle Ages, 85, 151, 175, 198 
 Milky Way, 34, 44, 53 
 Millikan, 265, 295, 297 
 Milton, 236 
 
 Miracles, 178, 216, 258 
 Miracles, modern, 236 
 Miracles of healing, 235 
 Missing link, 131 
 Modernists, 54 
 
 Molecules, 17, 34, 53, 183, 263 
 Mollusks, 104 
 
 Monkey, 55, 103, 126, 129 
 Morley, 279 
 
 Morse, 243 
 
 Morton, 242 
 
 Moseley, 271 
 
 Moulton, 18 
 
 Mountains, 23 
 
 Mutations, 91 
 
 Music of the spheres, 42 
 Myths, 34 
 
 National Research Council, 28 
 
 Natural law, 250 
 
 Natural selection, 77, 79, 82, 88, 
 89 
 
 Nature worship, 172, 173 
 
 Neanderthal man, 135, 146 
 
 307 
 
 Nebula, 13, 53, 192 
 
 Nebular Hypothesis, 16, 21, 163, 
 261, 293 
 
 Neptune, 254 
 
 New Testament, 169, 206, 226 
 
 Newton, 17, 48, 56, 85, 198, 208, 
 222, 236, 238, 251, 282, 288 
 
 Noah’s ark, 46 
 
 Noyes, A. A., 296 
 
 Noyes, W. A., 296 
 
 Oersted, 293 
 
 Ohm, 293 
 
 Old Testament, 40, 148, 151, 153, 
 212, 226 
 
 Optic tube, 42 
 
 Orders, 93 
 
 Origen, 211 
 
 Origin of Species, 75, 81, 177 
 
 Orion, 15 
 
 Osborn, 139, 296, 297 
 
 Outlook, 58, 200 
 
 Paleontology, 104 
 
 Paleozoic era, 105 
 
 Pasteur, 236, 243, 294 
 Pentateuch, 155 
 
 Periodic law, 268 
 
 Perkin, 294 
 
 Perpetual motion, 14, 88 
 Persian civilization, 35 
 Phyla, 93 
 
 Pigeons, 97 
 
 Pillars of heaven, 37 
 Piltdown man, 134 
 
 Planet, 13, 266 
 Planetesimal Hypothesis, 18, 22 
 Polished Stone Age, 141 
 Pope Gregory VII, 206 
 Porto Santo rabbits, 97 
 Priestley, 207, 239, 261, 289 
 
008 
 
 Primates, 127, 128 
 Pterodactyls, 105 
 Ptolemaic theory, 41 
 Pupin, 296 
 
 Radioactivity, 28, 189 
 Radium, 29, 189, 246, 271, 272 
 Rawlinson, 157 
 
 Rayleigh, 294 
 
 Reformation, 38, 45 
 Reindeer, 124 
 
 Relativity, 276 x 
 Renaissance, 198 
 
 Reptiles, 105 
 
 Resurrection, 230-32 
 Rhinoceros, 106, 124, 132-34 
 Rhodesian man, 135 
 
 Rice, E. L., 297 
 
 Rice, John A., 162 
 
 Richards, 268, 298 
 
 Rontgen, 246, 261 
 
 Rough Stone Age, 125, 137 
 Royal Institution, 240 
 
 Saber-toothed tiger, 124 
 
 St. 
 
 St. 
 St. 
 St. 
 St. 
 St. 
 St. 
 St. 
 
 Augustine, 39, 40, 174, 177, 
 206, 253 
 
 Hilaire, 61 
 
 John, 228-230 
 
 Luke, 227-229 
 
 Mark, 227-230 
 
 Matthew, 227-230 
 
 Paul, 172, 227, 230 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, 39, 206 
 
 Scheele, 207, 239, 261, 289 
 Schwann, 293 
 
 Science and the church, 196 
 Science and immortality, 187 
 Science, message of, 166 
 Science and miracles, 233 
 Science and the Scriptures, 166 
 Scientists and faith, 287 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Scorpions, 104 
 
 Scott, 78, 91 
 
 Sea-lilies, 104 
 
 Serum tests, 103 
 
 Shakespeare, 59, 198, 236 
 
 Sheol, 187 
 
 Signs and wonders, 38, 50, 202 
 
 Smith, George, 157 
 
 Smith, William, 62 
 
 Smyth, 148 
 
 Society of Jesus, 219 
 
 Solar energy, 27 
 
 Solar system, 13, 17, 30, 44, 192 
 
 Space, 20, 277 
 
 Special creation, 66, 68, 77, 94, 
 96, 102, 110 
 
 Species, 73, 74, 87, 93, 94, 97 
 
 Spectroseope, 15, 273, 287 
 
 Spectroscopic analysis, 18, 29, 
 237 
 
 Spencer, 84, 169, 181, 271 
 
 Spiders, 104 
 
 Spiritual realities, 276-83 
 
 Stars, 19 
 
 Steam engine, 239 
 
 Stephenson, 261 
 
 Stone ages, 123 
 
 Story of Creation, 39, 67, 71, 
 107, 152, 202, 210, 285 
 
 Struggle for existence, 77, 78, 88 
 
 Sub-orders, 93 
 
 Suns, 15, 21 
 
 Sunspots, 43 
 
 Survival of fhe fittest, 77, 79, 89 
 
 Tablets of Creation, 157 
 Tablets of Deluge, 157 
 Telegraph, 194, 244 
 Telephone, 194, 243 
 Telescope, 14, 43, 237, 287 
 Temple, Bishop, 84 
 
INDEX 
 
 Tennyson, 91, 236, 247 
 Thomson, J. A., 298 
 
 Thomson, J. J., 246, 269 
 Thunderbolts, 38, 208, 258, 261 
 Tower of Babel, 158 
 Trilobites, 104 
 
 Unknown Soldier, 244 
 Uranium, 272 
 Uranus, 254 
 
 Vail, 244 
 
 Variability, 77 
 
 Venus, 43 
 
 Vertebrata, 94 
 
 Vestigial structures, 101, 126 
 Virgin birth, 228 
 
 Walcott, 25, 296 
 
 Wallace, 77, 291 
 
 Waters above the heavens, 36, 
 37, 50 
 
 Waitt, 239, 261 
 
 309 
 
 Watson, 244 
 
 Weismann, 81 
 
 Whales, 99 
 
 Wheat, 52, 97 
 
 White, 219 
 
 Whittier, 118 
 
 Wiggam, 70 
 
 Windows of heaven, 37, 50 
 
 Wireless telegraphy, 245 
 
 Witcheraft, 208 
 
 Wolf, 93, 96 
 
 Wordsworth, 169, 185 
 
 Worlds, 13, 19 
 
 Worlé’s Work, 58 
 
 Wrights, 248, 261 
 
 Wyoming Geological and Histori- 
 cal Society, 64 
 
 X-ray, 189, 246, 269 
 Xavier, 219, 225 
 
  Zwinglhi, 38 
 
 Zodiacal light, 264 
 
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