By Tur Rr. Rev. L. H. Roors, Bistor or HAxKow The principal feature of this year's Convention was a course of Six lectures given by: Canon Streeter of Queen's College, Oxford, followed leach day by questions and diseuseions ata later hour. The-Canon began wife a discussion. of the: Relation of. Science and Religion: in their modern. aspect. Science and. Reli-ion, the lecturer: pointed out, are the two great idealisms of mankind whick have the most direct bearing on the practical' welfare of human-_ ity. Science ix the result: of the passion for truth; Religion predominantly of the passion for righted onsness. Science has, more especially. during the last one. hundred years, achieved an unprecedented insight into the secrets of the material Universe. This knowledge inventors and machinists have been able to embody in elaborate and ingenious mechanical. contrivances which have enormously increased the wealth, convenience and the physical well-being of the human race. The World War, however, awakened Europe to the fact that this enormous increase in power over material things, the immense resources of applied science and machinery and that organization of human activities which these have made possible, may be applied not to the increase of human welfare but to destruction on @ vast scale. These frreat triumphs of science and invention have made war, under modern conditions, so much more destructive than in carlier times, that there are many who think th another war would mean the end of civilization.
The Moral Tonic Accordingly there is in Europe, growing perception that science alone—with the progress of mech-nies! ying its discoveries to practice—may well bring progress to an end, unless the amount of good will in the world, individual and national, can be increased so as to ensure that. the achievements of science may be devoted to the increase of human welfare and not to human self-destruction. "Civilization cannot continue to progress without a moral tonic. Hence, during the last ten years there has been in England renewed interest in the discussion of religious topies and a widespread demand for some new dynamic in the way of During the last century there weas fan acute conflict between the leaders at least some of the leaders—of religious and of the scientific publi but it would seem that this is coming to an end. The leaders of religion have discovered that its trath is not bound up (as was formerly thought) with certain belief which scientists cannot accept. Out the other hand, during. the last twenty years or 80, thinkers who have approached the problem of the nature of the Universe from the standpoint of the most recent scien-life discover have decisively abandoned the materialism which was one time supposed to be the inevit able deduction from scientific covery. This has been mainly due to: the analysis of the atom and the! theory of relativity.
The lecturer referred to three recent book, "Seionee in the Modern World" by Prof, Whitehead of Har-yard; "The Nature of Physical Reality" by Prof. Bddinston, Professor of Astronomy at England: "The Analysis of Matter" by Mr, Bertrand Russell The. two former writers reach conclusions which are theistic, Mr, Russell who oes not differ from them substan. tially in his.view of the nature of scientific knowledge, does not go! farther than to star ball...
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