Science and religion

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SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

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BY

EDWARD B. AVELING, D.Sc, F.L.S.,

Fellow of University College, London,
Author of "The Value of this Earthly Life" etc.

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In this pamphlet I propose to discuss briefly — (1.) The
meaning of the words Science and Religion ; (2.) That
which each has done for humanity ; (3.) The struggle that
has been, that is, and that is to be, between Science and
Religion ; (4.) The duty of us now living in respect to this
struggle.

(1) The meaning of the words Science and Religion. —
Derivation is often an aid in the understanding of terms.
Science is derived from scio, I know. Religion is derived
from religo, I bind fast. By derivation therefore the
former has to do with knowledge. By derivation there-
fore the latter has to do with a binding fast. This bind-
ing fast, we are generally told, is of man to the god from
whom he has fallen away. This suggestion as to the mean-
ing of the word Religion, yielded by its derivation, is not
very satisfactory to those who attach no meaning to the
combination of letters Gr. O. D., and who therefore feel
difficulty in comprehending the process of the binding of
man to an incomprehensible nothing, from which it is im-
possible to conceive he has fallen away. Let us turn to
definitions of the two words. Science, says IMr. Herbert
Spencer, is the sum of all knowledge. Religion, says Mr.
Mallock, is belief in god, belief in personal immortality,
belief in miracles. Science therefore will, throughout this
essay, be regarded as the sum of human knowledge; the
total result of man's investigation of himself and of the
world whereof he is part. Religion throughout this essay
will be regarded as implying belief in god, belief in per-
sonal immortality, belief in miracles. To render the dis-

2 SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

cussiori as simple as possible, I shall especially dwell upon
that aspect of religion that has to do with belief in god.

Science is the sum of all knowledge. That knowledge of
man is often spoken of as two-fold. Man knows something
of the world outside his consciousness — of the rocks, and the
flowers, and the animals, and of his own body. He knows
something, moreover, of the growth and working of his own
mind. These two phases of knowledge have long been
regarded as dealing with things so fundamentally distinct
that different names have been given to them. Thus the
study of all that is outside man's consciousness has been
named from <j>vcrl<;, nature, physics; and the study of the
growth and workings of his mind has been named from
the Greek /xcra, beyond, and </>wk, metaphysics. Using
Latin synonyms, physics is the study of the natural, meta-
physics of the supernatural. But of late a growing belief
has been that this distinction is artificial. More and more
strongly is it forced upon us that this distinction between
matter and mind is only one phase of the old distinction
between organ and function, and that mind or consciousness
is only a function of a particular kind of matter as contrac-
tility is a function of muscle. The ancient separation of
the study of mind from the study of matter and its working
is sufficiently indicated in the two epigrammatic questions
and answers attributable to our old friend, Punch : " What
is mind ? No matter. What is matter ? Never mind." Some
venture, however, to think that the time is coming, and,
indeed, now is, when a special name for the study of brain-
function is misleading, and when it would be almost as just
to give a separate high-sounding name to the study of the
properties of muscle as to those of the nervous system.

(2) That which each has done for humanity. — Entering
upon this vast question, let me hasten to say that I am not
of those who believe that religion has done no good upon
the earth. The belief in god seems to me to have actuated
many noble lives ; to have led to much self-sacrifice and
much happiness to others. It would be folly to deny that
the belief in god has made in many lives music, whose
melodies have stirred lofty emotions and pleasant tenderness
in other minds. But I shall contend, first, that the happi-
ness to individuals that has sprung from Religion has been
fully equalled by that springing from Science ; and, second,

SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 6

that the joy entering into the life of man as result of scien-
tific work could never have been his as result of religious
thought. It is plain that there is but room for one or two
suggestions here, (a) Science has never, as far as I know,
inflicted punishment or taken human life because of differ-
ence of opinion. Of this religion must be accused. And,
in truth, Religion has taken human life without any differ-
ence of opinion, but simply as result of its own very nature.
The belief in god has led to human sacrifice. No such
damning accusation as this can be recorded against Science.
Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta, has been stolen
and carried beyond seas by Paris. The whole Greek nation
rises in arms. Foremost in readiness, as in anger, is Aga-
memnon, king of men, brother of Menelaus. Sixty ships
he lends to Arcadia. With one hundred he himself sets
sail. And off Aulis the wind falls, and the sea is smooth
as the face of a sleeping child. Wrath enters the heart of
Agamemnon, longing to be first under the walls of Troy.
He consults the priest. And the priest tells him that Diana,
the goddess, is angry, and the sole remedy is the death of his
daughter Iphigenia. By boat and by land the messengers
travel homewards to Mycenae, and to the maiden bear the
message of her father. She is to come to him to be wedded
to Achilles, foremost of the Greek warriors. And Iphigenia
prepares her bridal robes, summons her maidens to her,
and journeys by land and by boat to the becalmed ships off
the coast of Aulis, with dreamy hope and delicious fear
warm at her heart. And, reaching the vessel where her
father is, beholds no Achilles, no bridal. Only a priest,
holding the sacrificial knife. This sacrifice of a daughter
was the result of belief in the gods. Well might Lucretius
cry : " Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum " (to so
much evil could religion lead). This example, the Chris-
tians will say, is taken from the history of those believing
in a false god. I turn to their Bible, and I see an old man
going two days' journey from home, knowing that the love
of a mother would have been stronger than the command of
god. I see him leaving behind the two young men that
have accompanied him, knowing that their human nature,
even in his dull, blind time, would have prevented the crime
commanded by his deity. I see him, with his son, mount
the hill called Moriah. The son says : " Behold the fire

4 SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

and the wood : but where is the lamb for a burnt offering ? "
And the white-haired father lies deliberately. " And Abra-
ham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his
son," because of his belief in god, his belief in immortality,
his belief in miracles. His criminal conduct is to be laid at
the door of Religion.

(b) If any man or woman will survey one single day of
his or her life, and will honestly inquire whether such hap-
piness as brightens that day is due to belief in god or to
man's patient investigation of nature, the answer can be
scarcely doubtful. Almost all that makes life happier, that
makes the wheels of the machinery of society move more
easily, is due to Science, not to Religion. Let any man
think of his day, from his uprising in the morn unto his
withdrawal to rest at night, and estimate how much of such
joy as falls to his lot during that day is referable to the
belief in god, how much to man's investigation of the
world around him. The work whereby he gains his daily
bread, the materials upon which he labors, the machinery
employed, the food he eats, the railway that carries him to
and from his toil, the ship that bears the results of his
labors to distant lands, the system by aid whereof a piece of
paper with a few ink scratches thereon is on the morrow
read by beloved eyes hundreds of miles away, the wondrous
machinery whereby he here in England can wish to friend
on another continent many happy returns of this very day,
the books, the pictures, the music, all arts that hush in
some measure the world's wailing — these are the outcome
not of belief in god, but of man's patient investigation of
nature.

In truth, it is but the old question once again. Whether
has done the more for you, Earth or Heaven ? While there
has been much promised and vowed in the name of Heaven
by those who claim the right to speak for her, there has
been no more than promise. There is no evidence forth-
coming of the attainment by any man or woman of the
promised happiness of Heaven. But happiness falls to
the lot of some few at least upon Earth, and into the lives
of almost all some gleams of its sunshine steal. Science by
its work unceasingly increases the sum of human joy, ren-
dering hourly more possible happiness for all. Men have
cried aloud on behalf of Heaven and proclaimed as on the

SCIENCE AND RELIGION. *>

housetops the bliss that is there to be, whereof no single
particle of evidence has ever been forthcoming. There is
no need for men to proclaim the happiness earth can afford.
Earth herself declares it every moment. Our part is it to
touch tired hands and to guide tired feet to such standpoint
that with the lifting of tired eyelids human eyes may behold
this earth in its loveliness, and see as the god said in the
old fable that it is very good.

(3) The Struggle between Science and Religion, — That
struggle has been in the past, is now, and must be in the
future for long time, if not for ever. It seems to the pre-
sent writer that the two orders of thought are irreconcilable.
Science has to do with that which can be investigated : it
requires proof of all that it accepts as true. Religion has
to do with that which cannot be investigated : it requires us
to accept as true that which cannot be proved. The exist-
ence of god is as impossible to prove as to disprove. Np
scientific thinker would declare there is no god. The ques^
tion Is an undecidable one, and is therefore to him a matter
of no moment whatever. He is perfectly indifferent as to
whether a Deity exists or not. His business is to attend
to the actual world that offers itself for study, to deal with
matters which are tangible and have to do with human
existence and human happiness.

The records of the past tell us with terrible iteration that
the great opponents of new scientific facts have been the
teachers of Religion. It was the religious people who
objected to the earth going round the sun. It was the
religious people who opposed the introduction of Greek
into the course of studies at the English universities.

And if any think that the odium theologicum for a new
scientific truth is dead in this nineteenth century, I remind
them of the fashion in which the " Origin of Species" of
Charles Darwin was greeted twenty-one years ago. The
publication of that work was followed by a howl of execra-
tion from the religious folk. The book was blasphemous,
its writer evil. From the pulpits, from the religious press,
from Exeter Hall, went forth anathemas. This terrible
book was directly opposed to the inspiration of the Bible.
The two books were irreconcilable. The one or the other
was true. The other or the one must fall. To many of us
all this seems true enough. But mark the change of front

6 SCIENCE AND KELIGION.

to-day. The great book is twenty-one years old to-day-
It has reached its majority. Though the hiss of serpents
sounded around it in the cradle they were strangled by the
Hercules, Truth, and the " Origin of Species "is recognised
as perhaps the most remarkable book of this century. The
nations of the Continent, more quick to understand our
great Englishman than his own countrymen have been,
accept his teaching. The majority of educated men and
women of this country are evolutionists. The wild cries
of 1859 are no longer heard. Even the clergy of the
educated type are largely silent. We do not hear men say
to-day, as the writer heard a clergyman cry some years
agone — "Darwin ! Believe in Darwin? I don't. I never
read a word of him." After much outcry against the new
truth, the religious folk are now, after their usual manner,
admitting that which they opposed most virulently ; and,
with their usual calmness, appropriating the new dis-
covery as theirs, and regarding it as a truth, not only
in thorough accordance with u revelation," but in fact
taught therein. As they opposed the idea of Galileo
and then appropriated it : as they opposed the enunciation
of geological truths that demonstrated that "the poor
world " was more than the orthodox six thousand years old,
and then tried, with signal failure, to reconcile the dis-
coveries of modern geology with the first chapter of Genesis,
so now, after opposition of the most vituperative and least
argumentative kind, they are accepting evolution and ex-
plaining to us how very clearly the doctrine is taught in the
word of god. A religious thinker, addressing the present
writer recently, claimed the doctrine of evolution as a god-
send to religion. Reply was made : " Sir, you are right in
the word you use, but your pronounciation is at fault. It is
not a godsend to religious folk. It is a god's end."

In this struggle all must take part. There can be no
neutrality on the part of any earnest man or woman. True
is it that many may urge want of time and want of ability
to investigate matters so complex, and may hesitate to
decide for themselves the momentous question as to whether
is the worthier mistress, Religion or Science. And yet
such as these have to determine upon which side they will
range themselves. To such as these I offer this suggestion.
Feeling that you have not time, opportunity, power to study

SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 7

in full these great subjects, observe the lives, the brainwork,
the effect upon human happiness of the religious and of the
scientific workers. Upon whichever of the two antagonistic
sides you find the fairer and the more keenly intellectual
lives, the more ardent search after what is, the greater in-
crease of man's peace and joy resulting from the labors, to
that side adhere for your very life and for the life of others.
And because you who read these lines are but an ordinary
toiling man or woman striving as best you can to arrive at
the better, because you have not the opportunity to speak
or write for the good cause, do not despair. You can at
least live for it. In good truth, one well-lived life is worth
numberless lectures and innumerable pamphlets. Showing
that you can be honest, sober, pure, gentle, can care for
things that are of good report, though you have no belief in
god, you are doing as much to kill superstition as is effected
by the most eloquent lecturer. You can be a soldier in the
army, if you are not a general. And in the later years the
soldiers will not be forgotten. The grateful remembrance
of the name of Oliver Cromwell does not imply forgetfulness
of his Ironsides. For myself, at least, whilst his name never
comes to my lips without a feeling rising at my heart that
is like that stirred by the voice of a father or mother, yet
I can never forget the Ironsides. It was their individual
bravery and faithfulness that made him possible. Grave,
thoughtful, strong, true, nameless men ! They are not for-
gotten to-day. And the rank and file of the army that is
now fighting will be remembered reverentially, and with
love, by those that live after them.

(4) The position to-day. — Of those who resolve to embrace
as mistress Science or the result of man's investigation of
nature, and to reject Religion or the belief in god, hard
things will be said. More hard things will be said of them
than to them, for our antagonists prefer maligning to argu-
ing. But to them one or two often-recurring phrases are
addressed that call for a word or two of comment. We are
told that we are taking from earth all its loveliness and
poetry when we fail to recognise god. To take from earth
its loveliness and poetry is not possible. Even Religion has
failed to do that. For many centuries her beauty has been
ignored or accredited to imaginary beings. She has waited,
patient in her beauty, whilst her own children have been

8 SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

worshipping a false parent, and even now, as her sons and
daughters turn from the false to the true, there is no
murmur of complaint. The hush of hope falls upon the
world as the true children, one by one, are recognising the
true mother, and are laying their strength and love long
estranged at her sublime feet.

We are told that these new ideas are opposed to the idea
of the perfection of nature. I do not see this perfection of
nature. The chief charm of this world is in the steady
advance towards better conditions. Nowhere does there
seem to be attainment of the best. Everywhere does there
seem to be progress towards the better.

Finally, we are told that rejecting Religion or belief in
god, and cleaving only to Science or the result of man's
study of the universe, we are casting from us all the beauty
of the old creed, and leaving for ourselves only an inherit-
ance of hopelessness and ugliness. Those that speak thus
can have no conception of our joy. Let me remind them of
an old Greek story. Once upon a time, a certain sculptor,
named Pygmalion, fashioned for himself a statue out of the
clay of earth. No god was his helper. With his human
hands, out of the soil and water of the earth, he made for
himself a statue. It was so fair that he fell in love with
it. But at first it was hard and cold. Then he took it in
his arms and held it close against his heart. And, even as
he did this, he felt the statue grow warm ; he felt against
his breast the pulsations of a human heart ; he felt the lips
of a living woman upon his own. And so those who, reject-
ing deity and knowing no help from heaven, turn to earth,
and, by human thought and human toil, work out for them-
selves a creed, shall find that even, if for a moment, that
new-fashioned creed seem cold, it is but for a moment.
Take this product of man's labor upon earth's materials :
hold it close against your heart of hearts. You shall find
it grow warm, real, living to you ; and it shall be to you,
through all your life, a comfort and a hope.

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