igo4] The British Association President's Address. 133 



and the very conceptions by which we describe it to others or think 

 of it ourselves are abstracted from anthropomorphic fancies, which 

 science forbids us to believe and nature compels us to employ." 



Inductive Theory Inadequate. 



The school of John Stuart Mill held that the task of science 

 ended if the sequences of our individual sensations were accounted 

 for. Mill's "Logic" dealt with succession and co-existence in 

 phenomena, with methods of agreement and difference, with the 

 laws of nature as observed uniformities and nothing more. The 

 inner character of physical reality was of no concern to science. 

 This " thin intellectual lare " as the President styled it, is what 

 was served out under the imposing title of Inductive Theory. 



If Body and Mind are Evolved What Follows ? 



Our organs of sense (eyes, ears, touch, &c. ,) inform us that 

 there is a physical world : but science says the constitution of our 

 organs, our eyes, our ears, &c., whose reports are really sense- 

 perceptions, has reached its present condition by evolution or 

 natural selection So also have our intellectual powers. Utility 

 has decided everything ; what is fittest alone survives. Man's 

 physiological and mental outfit, adapted to the highest scientific 

 inquiries, are due to blind forces, which have no prevision of loftier 

 uses. The rudimentary instincts of the animal have thus been 

 perfected into powers of analysis and calculation enabling man to 

 mete out the heavens or divide the atom. The imperfection of 

 man's ordinary beliefs and ideas, based upon illusory experience, 

 may be due to these circumstances and to this genesis. Too accurate 

 and direct a vision of physical reality might have been a disadvan- 

 tage in the struggle for existence. Falsehood being, perhaps, 

 more useful than truth, and living tissues (composing the organs 

 of sense) being such imperfect material, no better results could be 

 attained. This applies to the senses : but it must also apply with 

 equal force to the intellectual powers. 



Science Gives No Coherent Interpretation. 



If evolution thus provides man with untrustworthy instru- 

 ments for obtaining knowledge, or rather sensations, the raw 

 material of experience ; why should it succeed better in regard to 

 reason, whose task is to turn experience to higher account. 



