Abstract
SIR OLIVER is arguing throughout with those who maintain the strictly scientific or agnostic attitude, and in doing so he postulates what he calls spiritual elements or a spiritual influence which at the end of his discourse he weaves into the one Reality which gives meaning to the existence of the whole material world . . . and illuminates the whole universe with Immortal Love. It is a fine passage, which takes us back to the triumphant finale of Dante's Paradiso but one is bound to recognise that it is a supreme act of faith, an apotheosis of the Unknown rather than any extension of the scientific outlook. Science, qua science, will agree with Sir Oliver that the mere fact of the human mind attaining the power of prediction forming, that is, scientific laws proves that the universe, as presented to us, acts in an orderly or rational way. It will also agree with him that the progress of the human mind exhibits the development of truth, beauty, and love. But when he proceeds to evoke and apply these conceptions as he frankly does at any point in the story of evolution where scientific knowledge fails, one sees a danger and remembers the famous Hippocratic diagnosis of the sacred disease the 'sacred ‘disease was that of which men had not yet discovered the natural cause. Our religion should inspire and encourage, but, above all, it must not relieve us of the primary duty of following the truth into its most remote retreat.
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Spiritual Elements in Science. Nature 130, 197 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130197a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130197a0