RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE 449 



they aimed and the methods which they used. David might 

 have killed Goliath with a pebble ; but the early philosophers 

 thought to slay the colossus of the Universe with a grain of sand . 



May it not be the case that the apparently insuperable 

 difficulties of philosophical problems are due to a similar dis- 

 proportion between the object aimed at and the weapons 

 employed ? Before the age of science, all forms of natural 

 knowledge were classed together as philosophy. As the various 

 sciences grew out, the appellation of philosophy ceased to be 

 applied to them, but was still retained for those various subjects 

 of inquiry which had given birth to no distinctive science. It 

 did not follow, and it does not now follow, that such subjects 

 are necessarily beyond the range of the human intellect ; but 

 only that the proper weapons have not yet been forged for 

 dealing with them. They are still the shuttlecocks of alert 

 imaginations, just as the problems of biology were bandied 

 about by theology and metaphysics before they were reclaimed 

 for their rightful science and examined by the light of approved 

 and well-tried methods. 



The position at which we have arrived, in short, is this : 

 The range of subjects for human inquiry is infinite ; human 

 curiosity knows no bounds ; while yet our instruments of 

 discovery are few and imperfect by comparison. We are 

 beginning also to see that it is useless to attack a mountain with 

 a pick-axe ; we are acquiring a sense of proportion between the 

 end aimed at and the means employed. Further, we have at 

 last become aware that the only means which offer any hope 

 for the discovery of truth are those comprised under the general 

 title of science. We know this empirically ; no secrets of 

 nature have ever been revealed by the so-called methods of 

 metaphysics ; the results of science and the results of meta- 

 physics stand in too conspicuous a contrast for us to mistake 

 the lesson conveyed. All hope of knowledge about philo- 

 sophical problems depends therefore upon their incorporation 

 into the body of science. 



Now the advance of science can only be gradual. We are 

 surrounded by infinite darkness, into which science thrusts out 

 in all directions its tentacles of light. The great problems of 

 philosophy loom out of the darkness, but we still cannot tell 

 as a rule whether their solution is far or near. It is useless to 

 stare at them in the dark ; we can only wait till the growing 



