Religion and Science: From Galileo to Bergson

Abstract

BECAUSE we wish to give a very favourable impression of this little book, we propose to state our criticisms at once, leaving no “but” to the end which might suggest a reservation on the part of the reviewer. Mr. Hardwick has written a very clear account of some of the chief movements of philosophic thought since the Renaissance, in so far as these bear on the concepts of science and of religion, though he modestly disclaims so large a plan. We doubt if the title is well chosen, in spite of its excellent simplicity. “Religion and Science” suggests apologetic, possibly ill-balanced and ignorant, and this the book emphatically is not Further, the author's definition of science is unduly wide in scope. “Systematic and accurate knowledge about everything there is to be known” (p. 2) really covers the whole of philosophy: science, as the term is commonly understood, deals with the facts of the physical universe alone. Thus the statement that “religion and science regard reality from different angles, but it is the same reality that is … the goal of their search” (p. 6), though true for the author's definition, is not true for Prof. Karl Pearson's (which he quotes) or for that of the ordinary man. The statements about radium on p. 126 are condensed to the verge of inaccuracy. Radium is not the only element which breaks down; it does not evaporate; nor are all the particles into which it disintegrates electrons, as the phrasing suggests. The statement that “electricity is a species of energy which can be expressed in terms of Will” (p. 128) conveys absolutely no meaning as it stands, and suggests that the author has not wholly escaped the plausible but dangerous idea that the dematerialisation of matter to which scientific investigation is tending necessarily brings matter nearer in nature to mind, thus confirming the idealist position.

Religion and Science: From Galileo to Bergson.

By J. C. Hardwick. Pp. ix + 148. (London: S.P.C.K.; New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920.) Price 8s. net.