You might say it is the difference between strategy and tactics. I would doubt if relationships play much part in either theoretical or experimental science, though they may play a part in discussing results.
Of course Plato was right in one sense; we all hanker after certainty, even if not quite in the way he did. And I have only indirectly touched on the Greek pursuit of techne or science and their desire to eliminate contingency from life. To them it may have appeared that science would reduce the ability of chance to wreck human life; but this is only true of science in its infancy. And it is a fallacy to think that science and technology eliminate luck, except in its rudimentary forms. No amount of science can take account of chance meetings, or a person being present when opportunity presents itself; yet these things may change one’s life. What matters to the modern mind is how you respond, how you cope with luck. Clausewitz sums it up. “Luck is inseparable from War. And you should try to plan so as to be able to take advantage of good luck if it comes your way, and not be thrown off balance by bad luck. Even acts of faith should be intelligent acts of faith”, a sentiment with which I heartily agree. One should not go further, and seek to be wiser than Providence.
Jung in the last chapter of Psychological Types defines at length many of the terms he uses, including the word “attitude”; and he says this concept is of particular importance for the psychology of complex psychic processes. Indeed were it not for the absolutely fundamental importance of attitude, the existence of an individual psychology would be out of the question. He calls it an a priori orientation to a definite thing, either conscious or not; and says that at bottom it is an individual phenomenon that eludes scientific investigation, although he recognises there are social attitudes, to which the bulk of a community subscribe. He was not apparently able to postulate the “Perfectly relaxed consciousness” as the one universal attitude, in which “thought” as we normally understand it is not possible; and that attitudes in which you can think are all based on unspoken and usually unconscious assumptions, and are all ephemeral, because the body cannot maintain the necessary nervous tension to sustain them for long, without doing serious damage to itself. I suppose he was unable to stand back sufficiently from his work, and abstract from it its coherence. His thought was too attached to the impression that his clinical work had left on his mind, because Psychological Types is essentially a work of classification based on his clinical experience. However my concept provides the key-stone of the arch, which Jung was trying to create; or provides at least the abstract concepts that give coherence to what he was trying to say. One generation cannot anticipate the imaginative creations of another.
So what are the assumptions I am making, in order to rewrite religion? They are that scientific knowledge, even though it only skims the surface of reality, and a familiarity with the rules of conflict, even if it is only of a small chapter and only for a limited time, are truths of equal validity to the truth of religion. In other words, one tries to see creation as a whole, and then examines what is left of religion. That is exactly what I have done in this book. It is not necessary to master the mathematics of the wave-mechanics. It is sufficient to know that it is the basis of computer science, and that there is such a similarity between complicated computers and the human brain that some people say, falsely I believe, that they are identical. It is false, in my opinion, because it leaves out of account the murky depths of the Psyche that Jung revealed. It assumes falsely that the world of rational thought is the whole of thought. In rewriting religion, I reject the concept that God and the human soul, infinite though they both appear to be, are the whole subject matter of one’s enquiry. The tangible and intangible worlds are both parts of reality, and always inter-relate. This is so, even supposing that the tangible world has only a temporary and ephemeral existence. It is real enough while it does exist! It is never a good idea to be satisfied with a partial view of any problem, because you will come up with the wrong solutions. For instance: you may think “love” solves the problem of War, which is so crazy as to be almost certifiable.