The Great Riddle

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 172, 17 April 1937, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Great Riddle

"A very large number of people give an answer- to the riddle of the -universe which is based upon an insufficient survey of- the facts. They assert that matter is the only ultimate reality and that materialism is the only reasonable creed,” writes the Ven. V. F. Storr, Canon of Westminster Abbey, jn the “Evening News” of London. “Many reasons may account for a man becoming a materialist; but one of the commonest is the solid achievement of physical science in discovering Nature’s secrets and turning to practical use the knowledge so gained. “The evolution of this planet is the story of the progressive emergence of new and higher qualities. To inorganic matter succeeds life, which climbs upward till man with his moral and spiritual nature appears upon the scene. “It is the end, not the beginning, of a process which gives us the clue to its meaning. We cannot help seeing both meaning and purpose in the* evolution, and they seem to he connected with the development of personality. And since you cannot get something out of nothing, we judge that, if in the course of the evolution spiritual qualities have come into existence, they must have been present in the source from which the evolution proceeded. “Can they, since they are qualities of a person, have been present except in that personal being whom we call God?” •