V Religion and Science

Religion and Science counterpart. It is perfectly possible that they are, what they have so often been taken to be, clues to the nature of reality. Thus our various experiences are put on a more equal footing, as it were. Our religious aspirations, our perceptions of beauty, may not be the essentially illusory phenomena they were supposed to be. In this new scientific universe even mystics have a right to exist. (pp. 138-42) Such explanations from scientific philosophers now abound. Morton White in his book The Age of Analysis, points out that ‘the philosophically-minded scientists of the 20th century have started a new crusade, the names of Whitehead, Eddington and James Jeans are the most prominent among them.’ He then bears out this notion of a ‘crusade’ with highly pertinent quotations from each of them. ‘Nature is alive’ (p. 84). Such was the interpretation of modern information by the English mathematician and philosopher, A.N. Whitehead (1861-1947). ‘The stuff of the world is mind stuff’ (p. 134). So said the English astronomer, Sir Arthur Eddington (1882-1944), deriving this conclusion from his studies in science. The English mathematical physicist, Sir James Jeans (1877-1946), interprets modern research thus: ‘The universe is a universe of thought.’ (p. 134) The views of the most perceptive scientists can be summed up in J.W.N. Sullivan’s words: ‘The ultimate nature of the universe is mental.’ (p. 145) The thoughts of these scholars clearly negate any material interpretation of the universe, their special virtue being that they have been advanced in the context of modern findings in the field of physics and mathematics. That the proponents of such ideas have had to make courageous, herculean efforts to overcome the materialistic outlook is aptly expressed by Morton White with