Religion and Science
6. The Man Science Failed To Discover
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are strong indications in our known world that man
can never be understood in the same way that
matter can.
Let us look at this entity, called man, on a purely
physiological basis. He is composed of millions and
millions of cells of protoplasm. And what is
protoplasm? We can say with certainty that it is a
viscous, translucent, homogeneous, structureless
substance endowed with contractility and a
chemical composition allied to that of albumen: it is
the physical basis of life and, clearly, we know a
great deal about it as such. Yet we have to concede
that we do not know
why
it should have this unique
property of life, or
how
this came to be so.
Moreover, it is a fact that the methods we employ to
study the material world cannot be applied to
protoplasm in any way which should elicit an
answer to these awesome questions. All that is
visible to us is a compound of certain things.
If we had the means and the resources, we should
be able not only to destroy but also to create such
compounds. Indeed, science has discovered the
elements of which protoplasm is composed and the
