Religion and Science
5. Religion and Science
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accident. One tiny corner at least, and pos-
sibly several tiny corners of this universe of
atoms had chanced to become conscious for a
time, but was destined in the end, still under
the action of blind mechanical forces, to be
frozen out and again leave a lifeless world.
Today there is a wide measure of agreement,
which on the physical side of science
approaches almost to unanimity, that the
stream of knowledge is heading towards a
non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to
look more like a great thought than like a
great machine. Mind no longer appears as an
accidental intruder into the realm of matter;
we are beginning to suspect that we ought
rather to hail it as the creator and governor of
the realm of matter — not of course our
individual minds, but the mind in which the
atoms out of which our individual minds
have grown exist as thoughts.
The new knowledge compels us to revise our
hasty first impressions that we had stumbled
into a universe, which either did not concern
