--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Merrill, Joseph F. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 31 number: 11 published: 1928-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Joseph F. Merrill, “The Realms of Science and Religion,” *Improvement Era* 31, no. 11 (September 1928): 910–916." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera31011unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera31011unse start_page: 910 end_page: 916 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1928-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera31011unse publication_year: 1928 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1928, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Realms of Science and Religion The Realms of Science and Religion * By Dr. Joseph F. Merrill, Commissioner of Education, L. D. S. Church IT IS SAID we are living in an age of science. The general topic for consideration at the recent four-day convention in Phila- delphia of the Religious Association of America was Religion in an Age of Science. Many addresses have been made, many books and magazine articles have been written during recent years discussing this general topic or some phase of it. Among thinking people the subject has received a great deal of attention. All thoughtful stu- dents consider and discuss the matter. A great deal has been said about the conflicts between science and theology. Forty years ago President Andrew D. White of Cornell University wrote two large volumes in which he entered into a thorough examination of this phase of the general subject. Many other writers have also considered the matter from this point of view. So there has been, and is, a popular notion abroad that there are irrec- oncilable conflicts between science and religion. Please observe that President White wrote of conflicts between science and theology, not between science and religion. There is a sharp distinction here, though these two ideas are commonly confused in the popular mind. Unquestionably science has had a profound influence on theol- ogy. And undeniably there have been many severe conflicts between scientific doctrines and theological beliefs. In the main theology has had to yield. "Truth is truth where'er 'tis found, On Christian or on heathen ground." Many truths have come to us from the fields of science. Error eventually has to give way to truth even when the error is one of theological belief. But so persistently have some errors in theo- logical belief been held and so warmly and devoutly have they been defended, that many people have turned from theological dogmas, becoming indifferent to all religious doctrines. Perhaps this is natural. There is usually more or less difficulty in sharply separating what is taught from the manner in which it is taught and from the person teaching it. Personal authority carries great weight and dogmatic assertions by persons high in position often have a profound in- fluence. This has been true in the field of theology. In the time of ♦Baccalaureate sermon delivered at Utah Agricultural College. June 3. 1928. THE REALMS OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION 911 Columbus the world was popularly believed to be flat and ecclesi- astical support was given this view. But Columbus reasoned that the world was round and thereby drew upon himself the odium of a heretic. Galileo had to recant or be burned at the stake. Socrates drank the deadly hemlock rather than be false to his con- victions. Examples might be multiplied to great length. The Stopes trial in Tennessee, about three years ago, is a modern example of the kind of conflicts that have been going on during more than three hundred years between theological and scientific ideas and doc- trines. And the end is not yet. But on the whole, perhaps the advocates on both sides of these questions are becoming less dog- matic and more tolerant. I said that, in the main, theology has had to yield; but do not let me give you the impression that science has been free from error and dogmatism. In these respects it may have offended as grievously as theology. Let me illustrate, taking a few cases from a field in which I have studied for forty years. In certain divisions of this field forty years is ancient history. For within that time, as Millikan puts it, "we have found more new relations in physics than had come to light in all preceding ages put together and the stream of discovery as yet shows no signs of abatement." In those days we were taught that any ponderable substance, as a particle of common table salt, could be divided into two portions, each of these into two other portions, and this process of division be con- tinued to a very great length until an inconceivably small particle could be reached which, if again divided, would cease to be salt, but would yield two new particles, one called an atom sodium and the other an atom chlorine. We learned that this smallest particle of salt was called a molecule and the two particles resulting from a division of the molecule were called atoms — one an atom of sodium and the other an atom of chlorine. Of course, this molecule and these atoms were so small that no one had ever seen them or could ever hope to see them. But it is with these atoms I am now concerned. They could not be divided. They were called elements — substances incapable of division into anything else. A chemical examination of all known substances revealed that there were about 70 of these elements. This number has since been extended until now about 90 are known. Examples of these elements are gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, etc., among solids, and oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen among the gases. But the point I am coming to was the doctrine, taught with ab- solute assurance of its correctness, that these elements could not be separated into anything else. Gold was gold, and an atom of 912 IMPROVEMENT ERA gold could never be divided into parts or be anything else than gold. One famous American scientist impiously and derisively expressed the idea in my hearing by saying an atom was a little round, hard thing that God himself couldn't break up. And so the doctrine of alchemy, taught during the middle ages, asserting that the noble metals, gold and silver, could be made from base metals like mercury was ridiculed and pronounced impossible. Perhaps no teaching in science was given more dogmatically or with more assurance of correctness than this teaching concerning the nature of the atoms. But in this day how different! The atoms are now regarded as made up of parts, the atoms of many of the elements being thought to be extremely complex in structure. Time will not permit of a statement of modern theory of atomic structure, but suffice it to say that according to a prevailing view atoms are miniature solar sys- tems having a nucleus, or center, about which particles revolve, a structure analogous to our solar system, with the sun around which the planets revolve. And just as one solar system in the heavens differs from another, depending on the size and number of its attendant planets, so the atoms of one element, as gold, differ from the atoms of another element, as copper, depending on the size of the nucleus and the number of revolving particles, though these revolving particles, unlike the different sizes of the planets, are thought to be all of the same size. But in the modern theory, it is interesting to note that but two kinds of particles, or building ma- terials, are found in any atom — particles of positive and particles of negative electricity. And so gold differs from copper, or lead, etc., only in the num- ber and arrangements of these particles of which the atoms are built, just as one house may differ from another only in the number and arrangement of the bricks out of which both are built. Now just as our solar system is filled primarily with "empty space" — if you will permit the expression — so an atom is no longer a solid mass, but a very porous one, the distances between the particles in the nucleus and those revolving around it being at least one hundred thousand times the diameter of the nucleus. In other words, an atom is also nearly filled with "empty space." It is made, as just stated, of electricity, and of electricity only, the electricity being of two kinds — electrons, or negative particle's, and protoms, or positive particles. These particles are believed to be indivisible, inconceivably minute, but in aggregates they make atoms, mole- cules, substances, mountains, worlds, the universe. Everything is therefore made up of electricity, the entity carried by wires from the THE REALMS OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION 913 distant generating plant to the electric motor or incandescent lamp. But though all things material are made of electricity and electricity only, strange enough no one has ever seen or can ever hope to see electricity. I spoke of the electron being minute. In a thimbleful of air, we are told, there are more than ten million, million, million mole- cules of air, each one relatively far away from its neighbor, each one extremely porous, and each one made up of scores of electrical par- ticles. Who can ever hope to see one — infinitesimal points in a highly infinitesimally small molecule? But there is something more that has been found out about atoms and elements that makes ridiculous the teaching of only thirty years ago. Then it was said to be absolutely impossible for mercury to be changed into gold or lead, etc. That old dogmatism is for- ever gone. Right under the noses of these scientific dogmatists atomic disintegration was continually going on in nature. The process is known as radio-activity. And a number of chemical elements such as uranium and radium are ceaselessly undergoing spontaneous decomposition, other chemical elements as lead and helium being born in the process. In other words, certain so-called chemical elements are found in nature that are spontaneously and continuously changing into other chemical elements. In the labora- tory, mercury, or quicksilver, has in recent years been reported, by scientists in Germany and Japan, as having been changed into gold. And probably the reason why we are not flooded with gold is be- cause the process is so very expensive. In any case, it is now def- initely known that chemical elements are transmutable. Let us turn to some other examples of scientific dogmatism, and to erroneous assumptions. I trust you will pardon me for appealing to my experience for these examples. Thirty-one years ago one of America's foremost scientists, in lecturing to a class of which I was a member, said it was probable that all the great dis- coveries in physics had then been made and that future progress was to be looked for, not in bringing to light qualitatively new phenom- ena, but rather in making more exact quantitative measurements upon old phenomena. But as Dr. Millikan wrote, "The nineteenth century physicists" — as Lord Kelvin, von Helmholtz, Lord Rayleigh, Poincare, Van't Hoff, Michelson, Rowland, Lorentz, etc., all leaders in the science — "had taken themselves a little too seriously, that we had not come quite as near sounding the depths of the universe, even in the matter of fundamental physical principles as we thought we had:" for. since 1895, a number of revolutionary and profound 914 IMPROVEMENT ERA discoveries have been made in the very fields where these leaders thought everything was practically settled. It was in the winter of 1897 when I heard one of the men just named ask in a public lecture who Augustus Caesar was. "A mighty Roman ruler," he replied, "but one who didn't know much about nature, for he didn't know what light is." He then pro- ceeded to tell what light is — just as every student of physics at the time knew what light is — and there was no doubt about it. It may be interesting for you to learn that today no one knows what light is. Some more scientific dogmatism has gone the way of all the earth. In the spring of the year, twenty-nine years ago, America's foremost electro-physicist declared in a public lecture that Marconi would never be able to send a wireless message across the Atlantic and he proceeded to show why. This lecturer died not long after- wards. I have often wondered what explanation he would have given ten years after this lecture. I have spoken of revolutionary discoveries in the field of physics since 1895. May we not briefly notice some of these? It was on Christmas Eve, 1895, that Prof. Roentgen announced to the world the discovery of X-rays, a new something, having some astonishing and almost unbelievable properties. I well remember when, about three weeks later, during a report on Prof. Roentgen's paper, it was said that a person could look through the clothing and see the skeleton of the body, that the learned professors shook their heads and said there must be some mistake. This discovery pro- duced a profound sensation everywhere in scientific circles, quite as much as in other circles. Roentgen's discovery furnished tools and methods that were soon employed in the rapid development of the electron theory of matter. This is one of the greatest, as well as the simplest, of all generalizations in the field of physical science. This is the theory that declares all matter is electrical in nature, made up of only two kinds of structural material — positive and negative electrical par- ticles. In passing, I will say that this theory is said to be the "very heart and soul of the new physics." It represents the discovery of a wonderful new world of matchless simplicity and orderliness. I spoke before of radio-activity, the discovery of the fact that some chemical elements are spontaneously and continuously under- going decomposition, other chemical elements being left as by-pro- ducts of the wreck. This discovery was made by a Frenchman in 1896. As soon as the significance of this discovery was seen, our view of the nature of this physical world changed almost over night. The THE REALMS OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION 915 so-called chemical elements were not eternal as they had authorita- tively been declared to be, but were revealed as changing, transform- ing themselves continually. The transmutation of the chemical elements was discovered as a natural process, thus completely de- stroying the old doctrine of fixity of these elements. Physical Science in the nineteenth century rested upon two foundation stones as eternal as law itself, so it was asserted. These were known as the conservation of matter and energy. Of these two entities the physical universe is made up. By no process known to man could either the amount of matter or of energy in the uni- verse be altered — either increased or diminished. The discovery in 1896 that chemical elements are not eternal produced a profound shock from which recovery has hardly been made. In 1901 it was proved that the principle of the indestructibility of matter was def- initely invalid. It was shown by direct experiment that the mass of an electron — a negative particle of electricity — grows larger and larger as its speed comes nearer and nearer to the speed of light. Put in everyday language, does the weight of a body get greater the faster it goes? Yes, if the speed approaches 185,000 miles a second. Quite unbelievable, many thought. But more astonishing still is the Einstein relativity doctrine, according to which mass, i. e., a definite portion of matter, has en- tirely disappeared as a distinct and separate entity of any system, energy taking its place; that is, matter changes into radiant energy and vice versa, the change of a small amount of matter giving enormous quantities of energy. I quote from Dr. Millikan's little book on Science and Relig-on. recently published: "It is well known with what joy the astronomers have seized upon this fact (that matter changes into energy) to enable them to escape their otherwise insuperable difficulties encountered because the sun. for example, cannot possibly have been pouring out heat as long as it is now known to have been doing, if it is merely a hot body cooling off. If, however, it has the capacity at the enormous temperatures existing in its interior, say 40.000,000 C, of transforming its very mass into radiant energy, then these particular difficulties disappear. But what a shock it would be to Lord Kelvin if he should hear the modern astronomers talking about the stars radiating away their masses through the mere act of giving off light and heat! And yet this is now orthodox astronomy. "And. again, if they do so in accordance with the Einstein equation, then is it not more than probable that the process is also going on somewhere in the opposite sense ?.nd that radiant energy is condensing back into mass, that new worlds are thus con- tinually forming as old ones are disappearing? These are merely the current specula- tions of modern physics, based, however, upon the now fairlfy definite discovery that conservation of matter in its nineteenth century sense is invalid." I have spoken of radiant energy, represented by the light, heat, etc., given out by the sun. What is the nature of this radiation? As 916 IMPROVEMENT ERA I stated before that thirty years ago every student of college physics could have told you definitely and positively. It was a very rapid movement of transverse waves through the universal ether, a medium filling all space. The light and heat of the sun and radio waves of a broadcasting station are said to be all of the same nature, having a velocity of 186,000 miles a second. What is the nature of these waves? A few years ago our student could have told you. Millikan asks, "But what do we now know about the nature of this phe- nomenon which we have called radiant energy, with the aid of which the masses of the stars are being dissipated into space? In a word, where is now the nineteenth century physics of the ether?" The answer is — gone, forever gone, and with it some of the most pronounced scientific dogma of those times. In the place thereof there has opened up one of the most abstruse, difficult, and perplex- ing regions in the field of modern science. In the language of an authority, let me say, "We can at present make no mechanical picture whatever of the act by which an ether wave is born and started out on its journey through space. * * * Both the mode of birth of an ether wave by an atom, and its mode of transmission from star to star after birth are still almost complete mysteries. * * * We can still look with a sense of wonder and mystery and reverence upon the fundamental elements of the physical world as they have been partially revealed to us in this century. But the childish mechanical conceptions of the nineteenth century are now grotesquely inadequate. * * * We have learned not to take ourselves as seriously as the nineteenth century physicists took themselves. We have learned to work with new satisfaction, new hope, and new enthusiasm because there is still so much that we do not understand." (To be Continued) Mysteries The little one plays in the yellow sand: He hears and he sees what he understands. As larger ones plan and construct all day. He hears but knows little of what they say. The younger ones play on library floor, Surrounded by volumes of learning's store, With wonders of science and art laid bare, Yet they play on in innocence, unaware. In God's universe, in the self-same way, His children labor and toil and play; Mysteries surround them on ev'ry hand; They hear and they see as they understand. Ocden, Utah OLIVE BELNAP JENSEN