374 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



Science, which struggles to release itself more 

 and more from all preconceived ideas, and limits 

 itself to noting definite and constant relations be- 

 tween facts and antecedent conditions. 



It does not belong to philosophy to question 

 the methods and principles of science, and it is, 

 besides, undeniably true that the object of sci- 

 ence is to discover, in the complex facts of Na- 

 ture, those simple facts which enter into their 

 composition. From every point of view, there- 

 fore, science ought only to be encouraged in its 

 researches into the simple elements of the organ- 

 ized machine. But if it is the right, and perhaps 

 the duty, of science to reject all investigation 

 that does not pursue second and proximate causes, 

 does it follow that philosophy, and the human 

 mind in general, must be limited to those causes, 

 and must deny itself all reflection upon the spec- 

 tacle presented to our eyes, and upon the thought 

 which presided at the composition of organized 

 beings, if a real thought did really so preside ? 

 It is easy to prove that such examination is by 

 no means excluded by the considerations just set 

 forth. Indeed, we have only to suppose that 

 organization is, as we hold it is, a work prepared 

 with art, in which means have been predisposed 

 for ends ; and then, if that supposition be grant- 

 ed, it would still be the truth to say that science 

 must penetrate beyond the forms and uses of 

 organs to investigate the elements that compose 

 them and determine their nature either by their 

 anatomical position or their chemical combina- 

 tion, and that it will always be the duty of sci- 

 ence to show what are the essential properties 

 inherent im those elements. The investigation 

 of ends does not exclude that of properties, it 

 even presupposes it; neither does the study of 

 the mechanical adaptation of organs exclude the 

 study of their connections. If there be, as we 

 hold there is, a thought in Nature (whether con- 

 scious or unconscious thought, whether immanent 

 or transcendent, is of no consequence to the 

 argument), that thought can only manifest itself 

 by material means, connected according to rela- 

 tions of space and time ; and science, therefore, 

 could have no other object than to point out the 

 connection of those material means, according to 

 laws of coexistence and succession. Experiment, 

 aided by calculation, can do nothing more than 

 this, and whatever goes beyond this is not posi- 

 tive science, but philosophy, thought, speculation 

 — things entirely different from science. No 

 doubt philosophic thought always blends more or 

 less with science, especially in the order of organ- 

 ized beings ; but science reasonably always en- 



deavors to get clear of it, so as to bring the 1 

 problem into relations that may be determined 

 by experiment. It by no means follows that 

 thought must refuse to seek for the meaning of 

 the complex things before our eyes, and if it 

 finds in them anything analogous to itself, it 

 should not refuse to recognize and proclaim that 

 like thing because science, in its rigid and proper 

 severity, declines to employ any such considera- 

 tions. 



Try to find some way of subjecting to the sole 

 rigorous processes of science, to experiment and 

 calculation, that thought of the univers-e, suppos- 

 ing such a thought to rule over it. If intelligence 

 has for its manifestation any signs analogous to 

 those we use, it may obtain recognition by such 

 signs ; but a work of art, which of itself is not 

 intelligent, and is merely the work of an intelli- 

 gence, or of some thing analogous, this work of 

 art has no sign, no word, to inform us that it is- 

 such a work, and not the mere result of blind and 

 complex causes. A man speaks, and we thus 

 gain the means of knowing that he is a man ; but 

 an automaton does not speak, and it is only by 

 analogy, comparison, inductive interpretation, that 

 we can know this automaton to be anything more 

 than a caprice of Nature. It is precisely the 

 same with natural works. Supposing them to 

 be the work of providential thought, or, if you 

 choose, of latent and occult art, analogous to in- 

 stinct, these natural works have no means of 

 making us know that they are works of art, and 

 it is only by comparison with such works of our 

 own that we judge them to be so. Thought in 

 the universe, supposing that it should manifest 

 itself in any way, could therefore never be recog- 

 nized in any other manner than that by which 

 we assume to arrive at it, namely, by induction 

 from analogy ; it could never be the object of 

 experiment and calculation. Consequently, sci- 

 ence will always be able to set it on one side, if 

 it chooses. But because it chooses to set it one 

 side, and, instead of seeking the rational signifi- 

 cation of things, remains content with demon- 

 strating their physical connections, can science 

 believe, without an inexplicable illusion, that it 

 has banished and refuted all teleological supposi- 

 tions? The proof which it works out, that these 

 seeming machines can be reduced to elements 

 endowed with certain properties, is by no means 

 a proof that, those machines are not the work of 

 an industry or an art aiming at an end, for this 

 industry (whether it is conscious or not) can un- 

 der no hypothes is construct machines except by 

 using elements such that by combination they 



