You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
A strange quixotism developed in the thinking of centuries that science attacked religion in spite of the fact that all history indicates more than a homily of the reverse order. Science merely reveals facts and uses theories in order to discover facts. Science and the greatest scientists,
oddly enough, have left religion alone. The author sets up the windmill of mechanical biology which, of course, is not identical with science. He then sets up the windmill of those individuals who take advantage of scientists' failure to put their views before the public. He musters forth a great array of scientific knowledge—indeed the volume is useful from this point of view. Having mustered all of these cannon balls, he throws little darts of another nature here and there. The reviewer would say that the facts are that people have turned to a belief in science because of its positive miracle-like achievements—always important in the origin of religions; scientists of true caliber have no end of trouble in stopping people from converting science into a religion which it does not pretend or want to be; true scientists generally are so effectively self-effacing that very few know who they really are, and so popularizers plunder science to carry a lot of hocus-pocus to the public to serve personal ends and hostilities. Perhaps we need a Who's Who in Science. As for the reviewer, he does not feel that he has to give cantillations for institutions that have survived thousands of years; as long as they retain but a tithe of their original source of strength, they will continue to survive, for mankind does not seem to have changed much in the comparable period.