SCIENCE AND RELIGION

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1636, 8 July 1903, Page 20

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

A REJOINDER TO 1 LORD KELVIN. (By A. G. Manthel). As I was pondering over the speech delivered by Lord Kelvin at the Loudon University College I recognised the truth of the London correspondent that the striking declaration made then, would raise a controversy by a large number of scribes eager to traverse Lord Kelvin’s statement, so as to make sure that New Zealand also shall have a say in the matter. I, in a moderate way. set myself the task to try and verify the statement of that Prince of Scientists about that beautiful world of ours and the dogma of the “creative power” as against natural phenomena. I straightway put myseif in a trance, constituted myself a medium and invoked the spirits likely to assist me in going over this terrestial globe to try and find out if it really was a beautiful world. A galaxy of spirits appeared. Virgil put forward his claim as having already acted as guide to Dante in the infernal regions; Strabo said he was a geographer and knew all about our globe. Cicero said, “I shall make the best guide as since my bodily death they call all good guides Cicerone after my name, and besides when I was in the flesh I used to dabble a bit in philosophy myself and could tell you something about a crystal ana a sprig of moss.”

His wonted) eloquence decided me and I accepted his services, so he proposed to absent himself for a few minutes to go to that inventive genius m Wetstralda and give him a million pounds for his aerial ship; he returned in a few moments, I embarked and we started on our journey. In less time than it takes to tell, we were in the Arctic regions my guide telling me that in working Southward we shall visit every part of the glotbe, seeking all the beautiful spots. “Of course,” he said, “you know that when I was a dweller on this globe, after benefitting my native land so that I was called) the father of my country, I was murdered when. I was scarcely 60 years of age, m the full enjoyment of good health, and I could contradict Lard Kelvin about this being a beautiful world. In my time it was a wretched world, and from my observations it is the same to-day. Now look around yooi. What do you see in this land, of silence and desolation ? You can see the bones of numberless bold explorers 'who would never have agreed with Lord Kelvin about this being a beautiful world. We will’ now go and ask the Samoyelles, the Esquimaux, the Laplanders, if they see such beauty in this world, hemmed in by snow with huts they enter by ladders from the top, enjoyment of any kind unknown to them. Now have a look over here; Observe these sealers and whalers swept by a hurricane. Ask them if they are happy.

or if they see much of the beauties of this world.

hez us now have a look at Greeur land, Alaska and Labrador, those inaccessible and inhospitable countries and exp.ore them as we may we shall not find much beauty there, and if wo go on and view Western Canada, Montana, where not long ago a blizzard froze and killed all the cattle, sheep and herdsmen included, we cannot dub that a beauty spot. My guide now took me across the United States and callea my attention to the periodical devastion of the Mississipi making its thousands of victims, and also pointed out to me a tornado carrying in a whirl buildings, houses, men and women and dashing them to the ground miles away, and the men and women riding on the top of a tornado are too busy to look for the beauties of this world. We next went to the northern part of South America, where all the beauties consist of malaria and the most venomous insects and animals. We then proceeded round to Cape Horn, an abode only fit for the stormy petrel. In search of further beauties we crossed the Pacific to China where my guide sho wed me the Yeilow river overflowing its banks, killing over two millions of people. We from there went to India and were appalled by the sufferings unto death by hundreds * and thousands, victims to famine. Arabia Petreae was next visited, an immense tract of country so devoid of beauty that it is unfit for the home of any human being. In crossing over to Africa we saw the great Sahara desert, an extent of country of thousands, probably millions, of square miles and we in vain looked for any beauty. My guide now suggested chat wo should go and look at the wretchedness and -misery which is the outcome of civilisation. The first country we went to was the home of Lord Kelvin, namely, Great Britain. He then introduced me to the principal gaols, hospitals, lunatic asylums, asylums for the blind, asylums for the deaf and dumb, hospitals for incurables and workhouses. in the gaois we saw indescribable misery ana wretchedness, in the lunatic asylums trie signt of the degradation of our fellow creatures made our hearts bleed. In the asylums for the blind some of the inmates said to us, “don’t ask us about the beauties of this world, for we were born bund, and have no conception of any beauty whatever, and consider that we are unjustly punished for the probable dereliction of some of our forefathers. The remainder of the institutions we visited! imprinted upon our vision tales of sufferings, wretchedness and poverty the very antithesis of either happiness or beauty. My guide now proposed to take me to the slums of London and other large cities were the homeless, the destitute, the starving multitude grovel, also to the horrible prisons of Siberia, but I said that I had seen enough to convince me that if this is a beautiful world for Lord Kelvin, who probably lives in affluence and luxury, there axe millions of his fellow-creatures to whom this world is anything but “a tiling of beauty” or “a joy for ever.” Here I parted with my guide, who before vanishing from any signt remarked that he thought Lord Kelvin’s statements entirely erroneous. As regards creative power, which Lord Kelvin asserts that science positively affirmed, and that there also exists a directive power, I take it that those who set up this dogma put themselves on the horns of a dilemma, for if there exists creative and directive power, that power must of necessity also be a controlling power, and if so we would expect that power to be beneficent, which, considering the terrible misery that abounds in this world, is anything but beneficent. If creative power exists for the crysfta,l and the sprig of moss, we must assume that that power has created everything in existence, so why create noxious and venomous weeds venomous animals, the leper, the halt and the blind; and as the followers and believers in religion maintain that God created everything. « Why has he created evil, also the devil, considered to be the arch enemy of the human race P