Evening star., 1926-10-16
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

This week has marked an epidemic
of Science-spelled with capital 8
for one eminent scientist, DR.. Mill
kin, lecturing at New Haven, tells the
students of Yale that more progress
has been made in science since the
beginning of the twentieth century
than In all previous centuries COM
bined; another, Prof. Irving Fisher
points to the progress made in human
longevity and offers to bet $40 to 81
that by the end of this century the
average length of human life will be
!, 80 years instead of SIS, as it is now,
or 40, as it was in the middle of
the nineteenth century, and another
scientist, Mr.. Edison, who used to
scott at college education until his
son showed him a thing or two, now
| comedies that death may not end
all and that whatever conclusions
may be arrived at from his former
proposed experiments in weighing a
body alive and weighing it again
Immediately after death, to see If any
soul had left it lighter or heavier
than before death, he decides that
| there probably is a soul and a here.
| after Of life.
Theo1ogians have given little
heed to Mr. Edison's untheologica
effort to demonstrate what is un-
demonstrable, but what, to the be-
| lever, is it's own proof-that life Is
eternal-but they readily accept his
| concession that he fails to disprove
| their faith.
In the November number of the
Forum. in an article by Edward Mar
shall, Mr.. Edison is quoted as stating
! "If there is any evidence bearing
one way or another on the question
that evidence is in favor Of life after
| DEATH" He urges religious teachers
to seek genuine" evidence and "en-
| deavor to build up proof which the
skeptical cannot laugh at"
To that challenge, the theologians
reply that since the scientist demands
scientific" methods of proof, it is up
to those trained in scientific research
to demonstrate the nOn-exiStence OF
what faith declares from the begin
ming of life does exist-eternal life
after death.
AS a coincidence not without i'm
pressiveness, comes Sir Oliver Lodge
England's leader in science, with a lee
ture delivered in London fast Thurs
day, in which he declared:
II think it reasonable to infer the
existence in the universe of innumer
able habitations on which life in Its
various grades may have developed as
it has on this earth. It seems ab
surd to suppose this earth is the only
habitable world, merely because 1t is
the only one of which we are certain
- The universe is a sort Of law
abiding organism or organization. Ii
affords evidence of design and plan
| &c
nothing haphazard. 1t is like looking
at a workshop full of running ma
chimes. The machines appear self
working and complete, but they are
full of evidence Of design to accom-
pIish a certain object.
"From what we know of details
here, it Is legitimate to surmise that
the object Of all worlds in space Is tc
provide opportunity for life and minC
to develop, and that the arrangement
Of matter in the universe is subsidiary
to that great end"
Nothing haphazard." A universe
with uncounted billions of worlds
not only all running smoothly fr
their orbits, but moving forward from
inf1nity behind 30 inflnity before anc
beyond. And, furthermore, these new
recognitions of science now find tha'
81 the universe Ol UlAhC uOCS iAO
consist Of merely finished worlds
but there is constant progressive de
struction Of matter and rebuilding o.
new worlds. Creation is not finished
But nothing haphazard!' Only as
tronomers who are looking into thu
depths of the intricate machinery O.
stars and universes can comprehend
j Sir divers meaning in that moth
ing hapha Zard." For "the firmamen
showeth His handiwork."
y r.
In the latter quarter Of the nine
teenth century, science was given II
"strutting its stuff" with an air O.
utter finality of knowledge, as IL i
had already discovered the funda
mentals of all that was needful t.
know Of creation. Schools taught
that action and reaction We're equa
and always in opposite directions.
and 1.-The indestructibility of mat
ter and energy" The professors o
physics told about molecules mad,
up of atoms. and that atoms wer,
the smallest units of matter, indivis
ible and indestructible, and tha
alchemy's dream of converting basel
metals into gold was impossible o.
fulfillment Advanced students