Religion and Science
7. The ‘Religion’ of the Modern Age
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daring idea. But is it feasible? Not, if we are to judge
by the many unsuccessful examples of
interdisciplinary studies which have been
undertaken to date. Even the study of a single
subject can swallow up a whole lifetime. Marx, for
example, had wanted to study only economics and
he devoted 35 years of his life to this subject. Even
so, his study of it was incomplete, and he was ulti-
mately able to write only one volume of his
proposed book,
Capital.
This is far from being all that there is to the matter.
The reality of man is so complex, such a mixture of
opposites that, in the words of a philosopher, the
only definite thing we can say about it in the light of
present knowledge is that it is impossible to hold an
indisputable and consistent opinion on man. It
would follow that only those with insufficient
knowledge could feel confident about entertaining
certain convictions about man, which the writer has
dismissed as ‘illusive confidence’ (p. 231).
With the increase in knowledge, such contradiction
and disparate questions appear before one that it
becomes impossible to strike a balance or find any
