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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fer from what has heen what will be 

 again. It is prevision, that is, such a 

 perception of the properties and rela- 

 tions of things as will enable us to see 

 beforehand what effects will be pro- 

 duced in different times, places, and 

 circumstances. Phenomena that elude 

 measurement may yet occur with such 

 regularity as to be foreseen with cer- 

 tainty. There is, in fact, a qualitative 

 science which precedes quantitative, for 

 properties must be known before they 

 can be measured, but the test of pre- 

 vision applies to the lower or qualita- 

 tive stage as well as to the higher. 

 Because biology, psychology, and soci- 

 ology are not, and never can be, exact 

 sciences, is therefore no reason for im- 

 pugning their results as untrustworthy 

 or without authority. 



"We quite agree with Mr. Godwin 

 that Science is inexorably shut up in 

 the finite and the phenomenal the 

 sphere of relation and law : but she 

 must have the liberty of the whole do- 

 main. Nor do we think there is much 

 danger of Science wasting her energies 

 in trying to transcend these bounds, 

 for she has plenty to do to get even 

 partial possession of what confessedly 

 belongs to her. She has won her 

 ground, inch by inch, by hard fighting 

 from the beginning, and even yet it is 

 conceded to her only in name. Every- 

 body will admit that it is the right of 

 Science to inquire into all changes and 

 effects in physical Nature. Yet, for 

 suggesting that a given class of alleged 

 physical effects be inquired into in the 

 same manner as are other effects, Prof. 

 Tyndall has been posted through Chris- 

 tendom as a blasphemer. Mr. Godwin 

 yields to Science the realm of the finite 

 and the relative, and in the same breath 

 he speaks of the relations of Mozart to 

 the laws of music, and of Shakespeare 

 to the laws of the human heart, as ex- 

 amples of the trans-phenomenal. But 

 we thought laws and relations had been 

 made over to science. No reservation 

 will here be tolerated. Science is pro- 



viding for its ever-increasing army of 

 research through a long future. Half 

 a thousand years have been spent in 

 getting on the track ; another thousand 

 will suffice to get under headway ; she 

 stipulates now only for room. Her 

 sphere is the finite, but the nebulosities 

 of ignorance must not be mistaken for 

 the walls of the infinite. If mystics 

 will lose themselves in the tangled re- 

 cesses of unresolved phenomena, they 

 must expect to be hunted out and have 

 the place reclaimed to order and an- 

 nexed to the provinces of all-harmon- 

 izing law. Nor can any pretext that 

 they are nested in the unapproachable 

 essences and subtleties of being, and 

 ensphered in the absolute, and guarded 

 by cunning sphinxes, avail them. The 

 thing must inexorably be inquired of. 

 It is the destiny of Science to pierce the 

 unknown ; if her spear is blunted upon 

 the unknowable, she will of course ac- 

 cept the results of the experiment. 



But, though scientists are hopelessly 

 closed in, Mr. Godwin does not despair 

 of others getting out, and he asks: "Is 

 thought, whose expatiations are so rest- 

 less and irrepressible, to be forever shut 

 up to the phenomenal and relative ? 

 Is it to be forever stifled under a bushel- 

 measure, or tied up by the legs with a 

 surveyor's chain ? " But the phenom- 

 enal and the relative go a great ways. 

 Mr. Godwin talks as if "God's meas- 

 ureless world " were a stifling prison. 

 We have been reminded that "Nature 

 is a prodigious quantity," and we are 

 so strongly impressed with this truth 

 that we do not like Mr. Godwin's fig- 

 ure, of a "bushel-measure" to symbol- 

 ize its extent, any more than we like 

 his favorite figure of " mud " to sym- 

 bolize its quality. As to his question 

 whether thought is to be tied by the 

 legs with a surveyor's chain, we suspect 

 that it is " tied " by something a good 

 deal stronger tlian that : namely, by 

 the laws of its own nature. He is 

 skeptical about the science of psychol- 

 ogy, and asks for its agreements. The 



