150 SCIENCE AND CULTURE vi 



In fact, the most elementary acquaintance with 

 the results of scientific investigation shows us that 

 they oll'er a broad and striking contradiction to 

 the opinion so implicitly credited and taught in 

 the middle ages. 



The notions of the beginning and the end of 

 the world entertained by our forefathers are no 

 longer credible. It is very certain that the earth 

 is not the chief body in the material universe, 

 and that the world is not subordinated to man's 

 use. It is even more certain that nature is the 

 expression of a definite order with which nothing 

 interferes, and that the chief business of mankind 

 is to learn that order and govern themselves ac- 

 cordingly. Moreover this scientific "criticism of 

 life " presents itself to us with different creden- 

 tials from any other. It appeals not to authority, 

 nor to what anvbodv mav have thouixht or said, 

 but to nature. It admits that all our interpreta- 

 tions of natural fact are more or less imperfect 

 and symbolic, and bids the learner seek for trutli 

 not among words but among things. It warns us 

 that the assertion which outstrips evidence is not 

 only a blunder but a crime. 



The purely classical education advocated by 

 tlie representatives of the Humanists in our day, 

 gives no inkling of all this. A man may be a 

 better scholar than l'>asmus, and know no more 

 of the chief causes of the present intellectual 

 fermentation than Erasmus did. Scholarlv and 



