Radio Digest (Nov 1930-Apr 1931)

54 Science and _/y e I i g i o n Must They Conflict? A Great Physicist Gives His Answer ... Sir Arthur Eddington Sir Arthur Eddington, 'who as one of the 'world's leading astronomers, is eminently fitted to speak for science. I AM speaking on the subject from the standpoint of those interested in physical science, and I should like first to convey the setting in which the problem arises. If you will look up at the sky in the direction of the constellation Andromeda and stand for a few moments scrutinizing the faintest star you see, you will notice one that is not a sharp point of light like the rest but has a hazy appearance. This star is unique and barely visible to the naked eye. It is not properly a star. We might rather describe it as a universe. It teaches us that when we have taken together the sun and those stars we can see with the naked eye and the hundreds of millions of telescopic stars, we have not yet reached the end of things. We have explored only one island, one oasis in the desert of space. In the far distance we discern another island which is that hazy patch of light in Andromeda. With the help of the telescope, we can make out a great many more; in fact, a whole archipelago of islands stretching away one behind another until our sight fails. That speck of light which anyone may see is a sample of one of these islands. It is a world not only remote in space but remote in time. Long before the dawn of history, the light now entering our eyes started on its journey across the great gulf between the islands. When you look at it, you are looking back numerous nine hundred thousand years into the past. Amid this profusion of worlds in space and time, where do we come in? Our home, the earth, is the fifth or sixth largest planet belonging to an inconspicuous little star in one of the islands in the archipelago. Doubtless there are other globes which are or have been of similar nature to ourselves, but we have some reason to think that such globes are uncommon. The majority of the heavenly bodies seem to be big lumps of matter with terrifically high temperature. Not often has there been the formation of small, cool globes fit for habitation, though it has happened occasionally by a rare accident. Nature seems to have been intent on a vast scheme of evolution of fiery globes, an epic of millions of years. As for man, he might be treated only as an unfortunate incident, just a trifling incident not of very serious consequence to the universe. No need to be always raking up against Nature her one little inadvertence. To realize the insignificance of our race amid the majesty of the universe is probably helpful, for it brings to us a chastening force, but man is the typical custodian, which makes a great difference to the significance of things. He displays purpose. He can represent truth, righteousness, sacrifice — for a few brief years a spark from the Divine Spirit. It may possibly be going too far to say that our bodies are pieces of matter which by a contingency not sufficiently guarded against have taken advantage of the low temperature to assume human shape and perform a series of strange antics which we call life. While I do not combat this view, I am unwilling to base philosophy or religion on the assumption that it must necessarily break down, but alongside this there is another outlook. Science is an attempt to set out the facts of experience. Everyone will agree that it has met with wonderful success but does not start quite at the beginning of the problem of experience. The first question asked about facts or theories such as I have been describing is, Are they true? I want to emphasize that even more significant than the astronomical results themselves is the fact that this question about them so urgently arises. The question, Is it true? seems to me to change the complexion of the world of experience not because it is asked about the world but because it is asked in the world. If we go right back to the beginning, the first thing we must recognize in the world is something intent on truth, something to which it matters intensely that a thing shall be true. If in its survey of the universe, physical science rediscovers the presence of such an ingredient as truth, well and good. If not, the ingredient remains none the less essential, for otherwise the whole question is stultified. w* HAT is the truth about ourselves? We may incline to various answers: We are complicated physical machinery; we are reflections in a celestial glass; we are puppets on the stage of life moved by the hand of time which turns the handle beneath. Responsibility towards truth is an attribute of our nature. It is through our spiritual nature, of which responsibility for truth is a typical manifestation,