Science and the Unseen World (review)

BOOK REVIEWS109 "And Penn supported James II against the Parliament, because he felt that James' action in dispensing with the penal laws was right, and that of Parliament in persecuting Papists was wrong. And ' he preferred James without penal laws to Parliament with them.' Parliament was indeed acting on behalf of certain dominant interests, those of the organised church and of the growing capitalism, and their suppression of the weaker and poorer elements in the nation was seen as evil by Penn and Bellers and other Quakers. Not till our own time indeed has Parliament at all fairly represented these weaker elements, if it does so now. . . . "The book is full of good matter. The style of presentation, however, could be much improved. Construction of sentences is often awkward, and elementary rules of grammar are frequently neglected. The author takes us through some excellent country—the seventeenth century is a land of splendid scenery and bracing air—but his vehicle gives us such jolts and bumps that we arrive at the journey's end more fatigued than exhilarated. In a future edition or in future presentations of his argument he will no doubt be able to correct these faults."—J. D. Maynard, as above. Eddington, Arthur Stanley. Science and the Unseen World. New York : The Macmillan Company. 1929. Pp. 91. $1.10. In the twenty-three Swarthmore lectures hitherto delivered, none has contained less Quaker history than the one by Professor Arthur Stanley Eddington in 1929. This author, in his lecture entitled " Science and the Unseen World," set for himself a task based not upon the history of a religious denomination, but upon the history of the universe. He began with primeval chaos, with tiny electric particles wandering aimlessly in solitude. He ended with the thought that spiritual seekers are akin to scientific seekers. " Rejection of creed is not inconsistent with being possessed by a living belief. We have no creed in science, but we are not lukewarm in our beliefs." The nearest approach to Quaker history was in his closing chapter, where he quoted that great statement from the Advices of 1656, still used by English Friends in their General Advices : "These things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by; but that all with a measure of the light, which is pure and holy, may be guided; and so in the light walking and abiding, these things may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not in the letter; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." No one, who will read carefully the Swarthmore Lecture of 1929, will be surprised that the New York Times featured it in a two-column cabled report. For reviews of the Lecture see The Friend (London), 5 mo. 24, 1929, and The Friend (Phila.), 6 mo. 27, 1929. ...