THE LIBERTY OF SCIENCE IN THE MODERN STATE. 



303 



But we must admit that it is not yet proved. 

 Proofs are still wanting. If any kind of proof 

 were to be successfully given we would acquiesce. 

 But even then it would have to be determined, 

 first, to what extent we could admit generatio 

 cequivoca. We should quietly have to continue 

 our investigations, because nobody will think 

 that spontaneous generation is valid for the to- 

 tality of organic beings. Possibly it would only 

 apply to a single series of beings. But I believe 

 we have time to wait for the proof. Whoever 

 remembers in what a regrettable manner, quite 

 recently, all attempts to find a certain basis for 

 generatio (cquivoca, in the lowest forms of the 

 transition from the inorganic to the organic world, 

 have failed, should consider it doubly dangerous 

 to demand that this ill-famed doctrine should be 

 adopted as a basis for all human conceptions of 

 life. I may, doubtless, suppose that the story 

 of Bathybius has become known to nearly all 

 educated persons. With this Bathjbius the hope 

 has again vanished that generatio cequivoca can 

 be proved. 



I think, therefore, that with regard to this 

 first point, the connection between the organic 

 and the inorganic, we must simply own that in 

 reality we know nothing. We may not set down 

 our hypothesis as a certainty, our problem as a 

 dogma; that cannot be permitted. Just as in 

 working up the doctrines of evolution it has been 

 far more certain, more fertile, and more in ac- 

 cordance with the progress of accredited natural 

 science, to analyze the original unitary hypothesis 

 part by part, we shall also have first to keep 

 apart the organic and inorganic in the old well- 

 known analyzing way, and not synthetize them 

 prematurely. 



Nothing, gentlemen, has been more injurious 

 to natural science, nothing has done more harm 

 to its progress and to its position in the opinion 

 of nations, than premature syntheses. While 

 laying stress upon this, I would point out spe- 

 cially how our Father Oken was damaged in the 

 opinion not only of his contemporaries, but also 

 of the following generation, because he was one 

 of those who admitted syntheses into their con- 

 ceptions to a far greater extent than a stricter 

 method would have allowed. Let us not dis- 

 regard the example of the Nature-philosophers ; 

 do not let us forget that every time that a doc- 

 trine which has passed for a certain, well-found- 

 ed, reliable one, and of universal application, 

 turns out to be faulty in its outlines, or is found 

 to be an arbitrary and despotic one in essential 

 and great points, then a great number of men 



lose their faith in science entirely. Then the 

 reproaches begin : " You are not sure even your- 

 selves; your doctrine, which is called truth to- 

 day, is a falsehood to-morrow ; how can you de- 

 mand that your doctrine shall become the ob- 

 ject of instruction and a part of the general con- 

 sciousness ? " From such experiences I take the 

 warning that if we wish to continue to claim the 

 attention of all we must resist the temptation of 

 pushing our hypotheses, our merely theoretical 

 and speculative views, into prominence, so as to 

 make them the basis of a conception of the uni- 

 verse. 



If what I have said before is true — that balf- 

 knowledge is more or less predicable of all 

 naturalists, that in many, perhaps in most, of the 

 lateral branches of their own sciences, they are 

 only half-knowers ; if later on I said that the true 

 naturalist was distinguished by his being perfect- 

 ly aware of the limits of his knowledge and his 

 ignorance, then you understand, gentlemen, that 

 also with regard to the public at large we must 

 confine our claims to demanding that what every 

 single investigator in his own direction, in his 

 sphere, can designate as reliable truth which is 

 common to all — that only this shall be admitted 

 into the general plan of education. 



In thus marking the limits of our knowl- 

 edge we must remember before all things that 

 what is generally termed natural science is, like 

 all other knowledge in this world, composed of 

 three totally different parts. Generally a differ- 

 ence is only made between objective and subjective 

 knowledge, but there is a certain intermediate 

 part — I mean belief — which also exists in science, 

 with this difference only, that here it is applied 

 to other things than in the case of religious be- 

 lief. It is rather unfortunate, in my opinion, that 

 the expression "belief" has been so completely 

 monopolized by the Church, that one can hardly 

 apply it to any secular object without being mis- 

 understood. In reality, even in science there is 

 a certain domain of faith, wherein the individual 

 no longer undertakes to prove what is handed 

 down to him as true, but accepts it as simple 

 tradition: and this is precisely the same thing 

 which we see in the Church. Conversely, I may 

 observe — and my view is one that is not rejected 

 by the Church itself — that it is not belief alone 

 which is taught in the Church, but that even 

 church-doctrines have their objective and their 

 subjective sides. No church can avoid develop- 

 ing in the three directions I have pointed out : in 

 the middle the path of belief, which is certainly 

 very broad, but on the one side of which there is 



