Article June 7, 1930 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Duncan Sinclair

[From an address delivered to the Lancet Club, Vanderbilt Hall, Harvard Medical School, by Duncan Sinclair, C. S. B., B. Sc.]

I should like to say, first of all, that we were impressed by your desire to hear something authentic about Christian Science, and that accordingly you should have approached The Christian Science Board of Directors. In responding to their request, and your kind invitation, to be here to-night, I should like to say for myself that I think very highly of your broad-mindedness. But that of course is what is to be expected in this country of ideals, of progressiveness, and of good will. ...

I dare say that in extending your invitation you were not forgetful of the progress of scientific thought. It certainly is not stagnant in these days. Human views and theories change like the colored glass in the kaleidoscope, sometimes appearing to be very beautiful, very enthralling—but always evanescent. Take the theories concerning matter, for instance. Think how far we have progressed beyond the "hard atom" theory of the Greeks or beyond Dalton's atomic theory, which, even towards the end of last century, held such a grip on scientific thought. Chemists and physicists clung to it tenaciously; and we know how valuable it proved in scientific research for many years. We are now contemplating an entirely different theory, one which holds that matter is fundamentally electrical in its nature. This theory will probably change in time to another, even more subtle. But while it lasts it will do as other theories have done, help human consciousness progressively.

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