7 SEPTEMBER 1934, Page 1

Sir James Jeans and the Universe It would take a

Sir James Jeans to comment ade- quately on the Presidential address by Sir James Jeans at the British Association meeting on Wednesday. It soared into regions where only minds of the type of Sir Arthur Eddington's or Dr. Einstein's could follow it, and it came down to the solid earth of the common man (if what the common man thinks solid earth is solid earth at all) when Sir James spoke of the relation of science to unemployment. The claim that the scientist by opening up new avenues of industry through his discoveries does more to make employment than he does to reduce it by his labour-saving inventions merits detailed exploration. So in another sphere does the demand for "a morality and a religion consistent with our new psychological knowledge and the established facts of science." To the theologian who objects that religion is a matter of reve- lation Sir James would no doubt rejoin that revelation comes through many channels, and .the Modern Church- men now in conference at Birmingham would largely agree with him. Yet it is a curious fact that one of the few religious bodies suffering from no diminution of adherents is the Salvation Army, which takes no account at all of modern science and its findings.