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THE RIGHT SOLUTION This short note has been occasioned by and owes its existence to the keen controversy that has been going on in the world of thought regarding the truth of Religion, especially of the Christian religion, with which alone the generality of English-knowing men are familiar. I have read some of the recent literature, including “My Religion " and the compilation entitled “Science, Religion and Reality," which have been compiled by some of the most eminent of men of our day, and I would like to say that I have found them very useful in determining the precise nature of the attitude of the average thinking man in our day, especially of the average Englishman.
It is clear to me, however, that the real issue, the actual point of divergency and differentiation, between Religion and Science has never yet been touched or raised in this or any other controversy within the whole of the period that the subject has been agitating the human mind. Neither in the condemnations of dogma and dogmatism by the leaders of free-thought nor in the writings of the orthodox clerics is there the faintest indication of an understanding of the real nature of that which the one condemn and the other uphold. As a matter of fact there can be no real conflict between Science and Religion when once we understand what is meant by the latter. Science and Religion will be at war only just so long as we continue to substitute the "traditions of men" for the Word of Law; for Religion is itself a Science, the Science of Life that no purely material Science is qualified to take a proper cognizance of. Religion is thus the Science of all Sciences, and therefore the king of what are known to us as the natural sciences today. As there never is any conflict between him who is the king and master and him who serves, the servant, so there is not and can never be any conflict between Religion' and Science, except in so far as the imaginations of men may picture to themselves things in a topsyturvy way.
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