The History of Things 87 



What we have been trying to show is, that the 

 conception of this earth of ours with which Science 

 works, and works to such purpose both theoreti- 

 cal and practical is the conception of a continu- 

 ous natural development in which any particular 

 series of sequences is describable in terms of mat- 

 ter and motion. But why should the scientific 

 mind be so afraid of the insinuation of a metaphys- 

 ical principle? Simply because it is a confusion 

 of thought that paralyzes intelligence. 



What we are driving at has been clearly stated 

 by Prof. A. Seth Pringle-Pattison: 1 :t Natural 

 explanations i. e., regulated sequences and co- 

 existences of phenomena are what every sci- 

 ence has to seek in its own sphere; and, ac- 

 cordingly, science justly regards as suspect the 

 explanation of any phenomena by the immedi- 

 ate causality of a metaphysical agent. The inter- 

 jection of such a causality into the empirical con- 

 nections which she seeks to unravel, she treats as 

 a form of ignava ratio" '' It makes the investi- 

 gation of causes a very easy task," says Kant, "if 

 we refer such and such phenomena immediately 

 to the unsearchable will and counsel of the Su- 

 preme Wisdom, whereas we ought to investigate 

 their cause in the general mechanism of nature. 

 This is to consider the labor of reason as ended, 



1 "The New Psychology and Automatism" in Man's 

 Place in the Cosmos and Other Essays, 2nd ed., 1902. 



