RELIGION AND SCIENCE 239 



so to speak, to see what part it plays in the body politic, 

 and how that part may alter with circumstances ; 

 or he may seek to investigate its essence, to discover not 

 only how it appears and what it does, but what it is. 



Further, he must have some general principles 

 to lean on in his search, principles both positive 

 and negative. He must be content to leave certain 

 possibilities out of account because as yet he cannot 

 see how they can be connected with his organized 

 scheme of things ; in other words, he has to be 

 content to build slowly and imperfectly in order 

 that he may be sure of building soundly. This is 

 the principle which we may call positive agnosticism. 



This very feet has been in the past one of the great 

 obstacles in the way of successful treatment of religion 

 by science. One of the attributes of man is his 

 desire for a complete explanation, or at least a com- 

 plete view, of his universe, and this has been at the 

 bottom of much doctrine and many creeds. But 

 before Kepler and Newton, no truly scientific 

 account could be given of celestial phenomena ; 

 before Darwin, none of Natural History ; before 

 the recent revival in psychology, none of the mind 

 and its workings. In the second half of the nine- 

 teenth century, for instance, science could give an 

 adequate account of most inorganic phenomena, and, 

 in broad outline, of evolutionary geology and biology ; 

 but mind was still refractory. Accordingly, the 

 philosophy of science was mainly materialist. But 

 the common man felt that mind was not the empty 



