THE LAWS OF NATURE. 551 



siu'h ji violation of natural law. Now it is a part of it. What shall 

 we say. again, about telepathy, which seemed so absurd to most of us 

 a dozen years ngoi I do not say there is sueh a thing- now. i)ut I 

 would like to take the occasion to express my feeling that Sir William 

 Crookes, as president of the l^ritish Association, took the right, as he 

 took the courageous course, in speaking of it in the terms he did. 

 I might cite other things, the objects of ridicule only a few 3'ears ago, 

 of debate now. ])ut which have not all found supporters who possess 

 the courage of their convictions. 



The lesson for us in dealing with them is not that we should refuse 

 to believe on the one hand, and sneer at everything that is on trial; 

 for this, though a ver}" general and safe procedure, is not one to 

 be recommended to those of us who have some higher ideal than 

 acquiescence with the current belief. 



The lesson for us is that we must not consider that anything is abso- 

 hitely settled or true. 



This is not to say that Ave are to l)e blown al)out 1)}^ every Avind of 

 scientitic doctrine. It is to be understood as a practical rule of life 

 that we must act with the majority where our faith does not compel 

 us to do otherwise; but it seems to me that we must alwa^'s keep 

 ready for use somewhere; in the background of our mind, possibly, 

 but somewhere; the perhaps trite notion that we know nothing abso- 

 lutely or in its essence; and remember that though trite it is always 

 true, and to be kept as a guide at ever}^ turning of the scientitic road, 

 when we can not tell what is coming next. 



How many doctrines of our own day will stand the light of the next 

 century ( What will they be saying of our doctrine of evolution tlu;n? 

 1 do not know; but let me repeat what I have said elsewhere, that the 

 truths of the scientitic church are not dogmas. ])ut soiuething put for- 

 ward as provisional only, and which her most faithful children are 

 welcome to disprove if they can. I believe that science as a whole is 

 advancing with hitherto unknown rapidity, but that the evidence of 

 this advance is not in reasoning, but in the observation that our doc- 

 trine is proving itself, b}" the fact that through its aid Nature obex's us 

 more and more, as I certainly believe it does. 



Never let us forget, however, that man, being the servant and inter- 

 pi'eter of nature, as Bacon says, can do and understand so much, and 

 so much only, as he has oh-strrid of the course of nature, and that 

 beA'ond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything. No 

 Avalk along 'the high priori road' will take him where he wants to 

 go, and no 'law of nature' will certainly help him. 



Eut these 'laws', having authority only as far as they are settled 

 by evidence and b\" observation alone, it may be a just inquiry' as to 

 what constitutes observation and, above all, who judges the evidence. 



