On the Conflict Between Religion and Science

Extract

It is often said that there can be no conflict between the two great departments of human interest, called Religion and Science, because they deal with different themes in totally different ways, and therefore never overlap, so that there is no possibility of a fight—the kind of thing that used to be said about Nations before 1914. But this is an exaggeration; no human being can always be satisfied with any one department of knowledge; there are times when he must seek a more comprehensive view. The alternative is to keep your thoughts from straying out of the region to which you are attending, and concentrate on one side only at a time. This has been the practice of many good people, and it is certainly one way of avoiding conflict.But it is not a philosophic or permanently satisfying way. Between the two great regions there is a frontier, and there squabbles and conflicts may occur, unless there be some way of reconciling the frontier inhabitants of the two regions. Our senses tell us that there is a material world full of things which we can investigate; our instincts and intuitions tell us that there is a mental and spiritual world where also we can feel at home. But the object of this article is to show that there is also an etheric or metetheral world, which spreads over both the other regions, and may be the means of reconciling them or of enabling us to attend to either or both without dislocation or shock.