Matthew Stanley’s 2007 monograph Practical Mystic: Religion, Science, and A.S. Eddington[1]examines how the life of British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington exemplifies that of a ‘religious scientist.’ Stanley argues that Eddington, who worked in the first half of the twentieth century, used his duel identities of a devout Quaker and an astrophysicist to promote his values in the scientific field. The importance of Eddington’s values is the overarching theme of the book. Labeling them “valence values,” Stanley asserts that some values facilitate interactions between religion, science and culture and that they so deeply penetrate the lives of religious believers that they enter the realm of science indirectly. Due to this permeation, the best way to examine how science and religion interact is through a biographical approach, considering how the two interact in the lives of work of those who practice science.
Stanley, rather than offering a comprehensive biography of Eddington, instead chooses six large episodes in his life which show the connection between his science and religion. He begins by discussing the “Quaker Renaissance,” a shift in British Quaker culture in the 1890s where Quakers immerged from an isolated place in society and took an active role in British society. It was in this time that Eddington received his education and developed his values of pacifism and both spiritual and scientific exploration. Stanley then discusses Eddington’s work in the development of theoretical models of stellar structure which clashed with the established deductive method of astronomy. He argues that Eddington’s methodology was based on values from Quakerism. Quakers, who believed that no truth should be held with absolute certainty but should be continuously sought out. Eddington argued that physical science should function in the same way and that rather than relying on the “absolute certainty”[2] of their physics, should rely on observation and intuition. This allowed him to present a unified vision of scientific and spiritual methodology. Stanley next discusses Eddington’s commitment to internationalism. In the early post-WWI years, many scientists, caught up in nationalism, sought to sever ties with German scientists. Stanley shows that Eddington’s clamor for internationalism was not common in the academic community but rather was a sentiment popular among fellow Quakers. WWI also had other impacts on Eddington. His self-identity as a scientist and a pacifist placed him in an awkward position since the government declared that his scientific work did not exempt him from duty but that his scientific status made him unable to formally register a Quaker identity. His refusal to cleave these two identities shows how much weight he gave the values of each. Next, Stanley discusses Eddington’s promotion of relativity and quantum theory as being rooted in his religious values since according to Eddington, classical physics, with its reliance on a mechanistic view of the cosmos, was irreconcilable with the personal experience of humans which did not follow such laws. He argued further that by adopting a Quaker approach to religion, tensions between science and religion with disappear. Finally, Stanley examines Eddington’s role as a popularizer of science who addressed Marxist claims that science and religion were incompatible, defending instead the human will and experience that he saw in physics. Pervading Stanley’s narrative is the supreme sense that each aspect of Eddington’s scientific career was driven in part by the values that he received from Quakerism.
Stanley’s discussion of valence values, though the thesis underpinning each of his claims, is not the sole argument that Practical Mystic offers. His discussion of the role that the government plays in classical religion and science debates in “Pacifism” echoes Adam Shapiro’s article in Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives.[3]Shapiro, in his discussion of the Scopes trial shows that the politics of textbook distribution in Tennessee forced many scientists and religious figures to choose sides in a debate that was really about neither science nor religion. Through governmental politics, people were forced to self-identify as either proponents of science or of religion, distorting the actual beliefs, no matter how complex, of any involved person. Likewise, during WWI, Eddington saw his status as an exempt scientist, previously secured by Cambridge in jeopardy when government decided that his work was no longer of critical importance. Instead Eddington tried to claim status as a conscientious objector due to his Quaker beliefs. This claim was roundly refused due to the government’s insistence that one could not object both of scientific and religious grounds: the two beliefs were incompatible. While Eddington refused to separate his religious and scientific beliefs for conscription purposes, there were many scientists like HG Moseley,[4] who accepted the government’s understanding of their values, chose science, and were conscripted.
Stanley’s detailed analysis of the role that Quakerism played in the scientific practice of Eddington, as well as to a lesser extent, Adam Shapiro’s study of external factors which contributed to the Scopes trial, show the complexities of discussing conflict between science and religion in the twentieth century. First, for every scientist and religious person, science and religion are different. Therefore, it is possible for valence values in science and religion to interact in different ways. Additionally, a number of external factors separate from both an individual’s practice of science and religion such as WWI or textbook manipulation can shape how values manifest in a person’s life. Consequently, it is only possible to study the interaction between science and religion biographically, like Stanley has done in his work on Eddington, in order to see the relationship between the two disciplines.
[1] Stanley, Matthew. Practical Mystic: Religion, Science, and A.s. Eddington. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Print.
[2] Ibid 11
[3] Dixon, Thomas, G N. Cantor, and Stephen Pumfrey. Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
[4] Stanley, p. 152
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