METHODS OF CONTROVERSY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22353, 29 August 1934, Page 11

METHODS OF CONTROVERSY

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Mr Hamill says', now, that whether I understand the mysteries of Nature or not is really the point at issue, at least * 4 the essential point to him. How happy he must be to make this or that point the “essential” one. May I remind him that it is not for Mr Hamill or myself to decide what is the essential point. That appears from the discussion itself, and is not for individual selection in the way your correspondent finds so convenient. What is really the “essential” point is that Mr Hamill twitted another correspondent with the “ incomprehensible ” mysteries of Nature, and went on to “ explain ” the whole bag of mysteries by the introduction of a Deity which is, in itself, an unexplained mystery beside which the secrets of Nature pale into insignificance! Mr Hamill would much rather have the opponent of the religious “explanation”

confine himself, on the defensive, to explaining the natural and material tacts of science. In this way the theological presumption escapes the criticism it invites otherwise. Such tactics are the “methods of controversy” at which,your correspondent excels, and having exposed them, I am content to retire,—! am, etc., E. W. h.