THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 643 



One of the questions of the day is this : Is " to believe " more 

 than " to know " ? Shall a sane man extend belief in directions 

 where he has no knowledge and in lines outside the reach of his 

 power to act ? Can belief soar in space not traversable by " or- 

 ganized common sense"? If such distinction is made between 

 " knowing " and " believing/' which of the two has precedence 

 as a guide for action ? Is belief to be tested by science ? Or 

 is science useful only wher^ belief is indifferent to the subject- 

 matter ? If belief is subordinate to t^ie tests of science, to be 

 accepted or rejected in the degree of its accord with human 

 experience, then it is simply an annex to science, a footnote to 

 human experience, and the authority of the latter is supreme. If, 

 however, truth comes to us from sources outside of human expe- 

 rience, it must come in some pure form, free from human errors. 

 As such it must claim the first place. In this event the progress 

 of science will be always on a lower plane than the progress of 

 belief. 



In a recent address before the British Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, the Marquis of Salisbury made in brief this 

 contention : The central thought of modern science is evolution, 

 the change from the simple to the complex. This implies not 

 only the fundamental unity of all life, but the fundamental unity 

 of all matter and perhaps of all force as well. In spite of the claims 

 of scientific men, even the fact of organic evolution is far from 

 demonstration ; while of inorganic evolution, the development of 

 the chemical elements, science can tell us nothing. Wherefore 

 the marquis, in view of the failure of science to keep up with the 

 progress of belief, grows jocose and patronizing. His advice to 

 his scientific associates might be stated in the words of Thackeray, 

 that " we should think small beer of ourselves and pass around 

 the bottle." 



More recently another English statesman, Mr. Arthur J. Bal- 

 four, has discussed the Foundations of Belief. He has shown 

 that the methods of science can not give us absolute truth. Its 

 methods are " of the earth, earthy." Its claim of trust in the 

 infallibility of its own processes has no higher authority than the 

 claim of infallibility made at times by religious organizations. 

 For as only the senses and the reason can be appealed to in sup- 

 port of the claims of the senses and the reason, the argument of 

 science is of necessity reasoning in a circle. Science can give us 

 no ground solid enough to bear the weight of belief. Belief must 

 exist, and it may therefore rest on the innate needs of man and 

 the philosophy which is built on these needs in accordance with 

 the authority which the human soul finds suflBcient. 



Balfour calls attention to the fact that human experience is 

 not in its essence objective. It consists only of varying phases 



