SCIENCE AND BELIEF.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19946, 13 November 1926, Page 19

SCIENCE AND BELIEF.

DEAD SCHOLAR’S VIEWS. (Fbom Odb Own Correspondent.) LONDON, October 8. A paper on “The Eternal Spirit in Nature,” written by Dr George Adami just before his death, was read at the Church Congress at Southport. Dr Adami, the well-known cancer expert, was Vice-chan-cellor of Liverpool University and a famous scientist and scholar. The paper had been finished by his widow, who was among those who heard it read. The object of the paper (wrote Dr Adami) was to demonstrate that, contrary to the teaching of the market-place, science and religion were essentially at one as regarded the greater things. That oneness was by no means universally admitted by leaders in the world of science. Pasteur never once in his writings referred, to matters spiritual, and the reason given by Roux, Pasteur’s first lieutenant, was that the famous scientist regarded it as an impiety to seek to explain the spiritual life in the terms of the material life. FAITH BUILT ON CONVICTION. “The man of religion and the student of science were equally seekers after truth. My part has been to show,” Dr Adami continued, "‘that the methods of science and religion are identical. “I want to make it clear that the scientist may come to a clear knowledge of religious truth by the very methods that he has employed at his own work. Man’s faith is not built upon reason but upon conviction, and that conviction may rise from a series of assumptions, accepted as in the case of natural laws. The more the student of science ponders upon the work of the eternal spirit, the more, in my opinion, will he be thiust back upon the life of Christ as the eternal expression of that spirit, and, conversely, if he dares to build ii religion as he does in science he will find that he will grow into ever wider knowledge of spiritual truth more and more. As the years have passed I become convinced that the love of God is everything, and that if a man possesses this all other things are secondary.” At the onclusion of the address there was a loud outburst of cheering.

NATURE SINISTER AND CRUEL. The Rev. J, C. Hardwick, vicar of Partington, Cheshire, declared that the spirit behind Nature, if spirit there be, was sinister, cruel, indifferent, and. though marvellously intelligent, cared nothing for what wo called good and evil. If we wished to fin J a spirit that was holy, we must look for it not in Nature, but either in the heart of man or in some sphere outside both Nature and humanity. If philosophers, poets, and mystics were inspired by the beauty of inanimate nature, •the man of science was deeply conscious of the .incomparable beauty and perfection of the'’world of life.