Abstract
THIS is a contribution to the literature of reconciliation. The science and religion of the nineteenth century were hopelessly at variance, chiefly in consequence of the latter's claim to pronounce in matters of cosmology (e.g. Mr. Gladstone's “Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture”). But the conditions are now different. Religion is being regarded as “an attitude of the soul to all that it knows of cosmic law”—in Myers's phrase—rather than as a matter of dogma; and science, also, is learning humility. Crude materialism is seen to be no complete solution of the riddle of the universe, for we do not know what “matter” is. Moreover, psychology is bringing to light certain phenomena which orthodox scientific theories do not seem to cover. The time, therefore, is ripe for a rapprochement; and among leaders of thought on the scientific side of the reconciliation movement, Sir Oliver Lodge is by far the most eminent and the most influential.
Reason and Belief.
By Sir Oliver Lodge. Pp. xiv + 212. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1910.) Price 3s. 6d. net.
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H., J. Reason and Belief . Nature 85, 201 (1910). https://doi.org/10.1038/085201c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/085201c0