ABSTRACT
A year or so ago, at a dinner party, the discursive talk on things in general which I shared with my neighbours suddenly passed into a more serious note and spoke of the controversy between science and religion. One of my neighbours, a charming young lady and a brilliant student at one of our older universities, remarked in all seriousness that she could not understand how a scientific man could also be a religious man. I rejoined that I as a doctor of medicine and in some degree a scientific man, by very reason of my scientific training could not be or wish to be other than a religious man. I had that talk in mind when later I received a suggestion that there was room for a book on the relations of religion and science. I thought that if I could write such a book there would be some advantage, first to myself, for there is no better means of clarifying one’s vague and wandering thoughts than an attempt to express them in the current coin of the written word. Further, an attempt of this order may well be helpful, or at least stimulating to others who may care to read what someone else thinks. I confess, I have found the task harder than I anticipated. Still, in attempting it, I have tried frankly and impartially to face facts, to examine what I feel 10justified or compelled to believe about them, and to show the grounds which I regard as adequate for my conclusions.
