Thirdly, I submit that Life is not a sort of crazy competition in which special awards are to be received for completing the course blindfold, but a phase in the general upward progress of man—whether considered collectively or individually—and that consequently any knowledge is desirable which will enable us consciously and intelligently to co-operate in the process.
Finally, and I think that this puts the whole matter in one sentence, however clearly a man can see, he must still be able to believe his eyes.
However plainly we can see the path, we must still believe that it leads in the right direction, however conclusively we may demonstrate a proposition, we are still dependent on our Faith in the validity of Reason and the veridicity of the observations on which it is based—and this is equally the case whether the latter be scientific measurements or spiritual experiences.
The supreme effort of Faith, made by the most material of scientists no less than by the Saint, is the belief that the Cosmos, of which Reason is a part, is a coherent whole and not a Chaos.
The second argument appears to me to be equally fissiparous.
In the first place I should never dream of attempting to reduce the whole Cosmos to terms of mechanism.
Any such idea would be infinitely repugnant to me. Moreover, the attempt would inevitably be foredoomed to failure since there are problems which are essentially insoluble. The first and most obvious of all—the problem of the nature and origin of Consciousness—is one to which we can never hope to find an answer.
But quite apart from all this I entirely fail to see why the explanation of mechanism, using the word in its widest sense, should have any bearing on religion at all.