The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which is at the heart of all popular religion, that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.

Lippmann contrasts the scientific worldview with what he characterizes as a common religious impulse: the hope that nature is responsive to human wishes, moral deserts, or prayer. The “radical novelty” of modern science, on this reading, is not merely new instruments or discoveries but a disciplined refusal to treat the cosmos as anthropocentric—governed by laws indifferent to human preference. The line underscores the emotional difficulty of scientific naturalism: it asks people to accept that the same impersonal forces govern both the vast (stars) and the minute (atoms), regardless of what anyone wants to be true. It also hints at a cultural conflict between explanatory systems grounded in lawlike regularity and those grounded in meaning, purpose, or providence.