44 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Is not all life a discipline of determining probabilities? It would 

 seem that God intends tliat generally the certainties shall be known 

 only to himself. He has probably shown us a very few certainties, 

 more for the purpose of furnishing the idea than for any practical pur- 

 pose, as absolute certainty is necessary for him, while probabilities 

 are sufficient for us. All science is purely a classification of proba- 

 bilities. 



We do not hnow that the same result will follow the same act in 

 its several repetitions, but believe that it will ; and we believe it so 

 firmly that if a professor had performed a successful experiment be- 

 fore a class in chemistry, he would not hesitate to repeat the experi- 

 ment after a lapse of a quarter of a century. Scientific men are not 

 infidels. Of no men may it be more truly said that they " walk by 

 faith." They do not creep, they march. Their tread is on made 

 ground, on probabilities ; but they believe they shall be supported, 

 and according to their faith so is it done unto them. 



And no men better know than truly scientific men that this prob- 

 ability can never become certainty. In the wildest dreams of fanati- 

 cism and there are fanatics in the laboratory, as there are in the 

 sanctuary of God and in the temple of Mammon it has never been 

 believed that there shall come a man who shall know all things that 

 are, all things that have been, all things that shall be, and all things 

 that can be, in their properties, their attributes, and their relations. 

 Until such a man shall arise, science must always be concerned with 

 the cognition of that which is the real truth as to probabilities, or 

 with probable cognitions of that which is not only real truth, but ab- 

 solute truth. A scientific writer, then, when he states that any prop- 

 osition has been " proved," or anything " shown," means that it has 

 been proved probable to some minds, or shown to some perhaps to 

 all intelligent persons as probable. If he have sense and modesty, 

 he can mean no more, although he does not cumber his pages or his 

 speech with the constant repetition of that which is to be presumed, 

 even as a Christian in making his appointments does not always say 

 Deo volente, because it is understood that a Christian is a man always 

 seeking to do what he thinks to be the will of God, in submission to 

 the providence of God. 



A scientific man ridicules the idea of any religious man claiming 

 to be " orthodox." It must be admitted to be ridiculous, just as ridic- 

 ulous as would be the claim of a scientific man to absolute certainty 

 and unchangeableness for science. The more truly religious a man 

 is, the more humble he is ; the more he sees the deep things of God, 

 the more he sees the shallow things of himself. He claims nothing 

 positively. He certainly does not make that most arrogant of all 

 claims, the claim to the prerogative of infinite intelligence. There 

 can exist only one Being in the universe who is positively and abso- 

 lutely orthodox, and that is God. In religion, as in science, we walk 



