Religion and Science
6. The Man Science Failed To Discover
~ 97 ~
community of cells and nutrient fluids whose
organic laws are studied by the physiologists.
He is the compound of tissues and
consciousness that hygienists and educators
endeavour to lead to its optimum
development while it extends into time. He is
the homoa-conomicus who must ceaselessly
consume manufactured products in order that
the machines, of which he is made a slave,
may be kept at work. But he is also the poet,
the hero, and the saint. He is not only the
prodigiously complex being analyzed by our
scientific techniques, but also the tendencies,
the conjectures, the aspirations of humanity.
Our conceptions of him are imbued with
metaphysics. They are founded on so many
and such imprecise data that the temptation is
great to choose among them those, which
please us. Therefore, our idea of man varies
according to our feelings and our beliefs. A
materialist and a spiritualist accept the same
definition of a crystal of sodium chloride; but
they do not agree with one another upon that
of the human being. A mechanistic
physiologist and a vitalistic physiologist do
