Religion and Science
5. Religion and Science
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flesh, finds its way into the outer world? In the past,
the obvious answer was: “It is the hand of God.”
But now, microscopic studies have shown that on
the completion of twenty-one days, when the chick
is ready to emerge, there appears on its beak a
small, hard horn with which this ‘lump of flesh’ is
able to break through the walls of its cell. The horn,
having done its job, falls off a few days later. This
observation, from the point of view of the anti-
religionists, contradicts the old concept that it is
God who brings the chick out of the shell, because
the microscope has clearly shown that a 21-day law
exists which is responsible for creating conditions,
which make it possible for the chick to emerge from
the shell. This is a mere fallacy. What modern
observation has done is to add a few more links to
the chain of factors, which lead up to an event. It
does not tell us the real cause of the occurrence. It
has just shifted the problem of the breaking up of
the shell to the development of the horn. The
breaking of the shell by the chick is simply an
intermediate stage in the occurrence rather than its
cause. Will the cause of the event be understood
only when we learn what made the horn appear on
the chick’s beak? In other words, when we have
