Do We Believe?; An Analysis of a Great Correspondence (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ...the other hand, it deals rith phenomena only and has nothing to ay about the noumenon, or the ultimate eality which underlies the universe as t impresses itself upon our senses, its ignostic position is held up as a proof hat it has no better grounds than 'faith " itself for its interpretations and mnciples. This is a curious medley of opinions. Dn the one hand science is accused of discovering miracles, and on the other t is accused of helpless ignorance. Both views are, of course, quite wrong. There is nothing more miraculous ibout, say, Marconi's wireless telegraphy than there is about a steamengine. Clerk-Maxwell and others worked out, by higher mathematics, the theory of electric waves in the ether; Hertz proved their conclusions experimentally; and Marconi put Hertz's experiments on a commercial basis. It is surely a far cry from this process of calculation, experiment and commercialism, to the feeding of the five thousand. The Bishop's argument, when reduced to its elements, is simply that because Marconi has devised an instrument for producing electric waves (which are not dissimilar to those of light), and another instrument for detecting these waves as the eye does those of light, therefore all things are possible to God. The inference is absurd, even apart from the consideration that the existence of God is at least an open question. The "miracles" of science are, in short, not miracles at all, but merely newly-discovered manifestations of the activity of matter. As for the other point of view--that science is as ignorant as faith and the scientific man does not "understand" any more than the believer on faith--it is based on mere confusion. Science deals solely with phenomena, with evidence, with...