RELIGION AND THE INTELLECTUALS
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world appear intelligible: it satisfied people's need for certainty and
order. There were, indeed, some who took their stand against it on
emotional grounds; they objected to its "soulless materialism"; but in–
tellectually at least, its account of the world was one which most
people were able and willing to accept. By comparison the religious
account seemed vague and arbitrary. The fact that it was unscientific
was its intellectual condemnation. But by now the situation of
science itself has changed. Its world-picture is not at all simple and
not particularly coherent. Its basic concepts are further removed
from those of common sense; they make no immediate appeal to
the layman's imagination. Thus, to the uninitiated, its account of the
world, though more precise, is hardly less fantastic than the religious
account. Most important of all, the conception of scientific law has
altered. Causal necessities have largely given way to statistical des–
criptions. It is recognized that there is a large element of convention
in scientific theories. Propositions which used to be dignified as "laws
of nature" are now regarded as working hypotheses. Logically, this
marks a decided advance. It is a philosophical gain to have realized
that explanation consists in a more generalized description, and that
no such description can ever be sacrosanct. But it is also to many
a source of intellectual dissatisfaction. They want a form of explana–
tion which will say something more than merely that this is how
the world works. They want to be given a reason for its working
as it does; and this reason has to take the form of a demonstration.
It
is not enough to state what happens to be true; it has to be shown that
it is necessarily true. Now it is easy to prove that what is here
demanded is a logical impossibility. It was an error to suppose that
science ever yielded it; and it is an error to suppose that religion
yields it now. Nevertheless the demand persists; and the attraction of
religion is that it offers the fallacious assurance that it is capable of
being satisfied.
For those to whom it is intolerable that facts should be con–
tingent, that things should just happen to be as they are, it is also
likely to be intolerable that the choice of values should rest ultimately
with themselves. They may not need religious sanctions in order to
observe the ordinary social rules of morality, but unless they can
be assured that life has some meaning in itself they are inclined to
feel that everything they do is trivial and that all conduct, including
