THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS 



is said, accept both without making the futile 

 attempt to reconcile them. In theology we have 

 an example of antinomy in the doctrines of free- 

 will and God's foreknowledge of our actions. Mr. 

 Mallock has popularized the notion of antinomies, 

 and expresses the conclusion to which as is said 

 we are forced, in the phrase "a practical syn- 

 thesis of contradictories." Similarly we are told 

 that the best way of treating the contradictory as- 

 sertions of "science" and "religion" is to do as 

 Faraday said he did keep them in separate pock- 

 ets; for "science and religion proceed from dif- 

 ferent centres and cannot and need not be recon- 

 ciled." 



In other and plain words, then, we are asked 

 simultaneously to believe that black is black and 

 also that black is white. To which the plain man 

 more power to his elbow will reply that there 

 must be "something wrong somewhere"; or, in 

 the familiar phrase, "You must have it one way 

 or the other." But these "reconcilers of science 

 and religion" and exponents of the pure and 

 practical reason keep on asserting that which 

 logic and experience assure us to be impossible 

 that one can both eat one's cake and have it. 

 The honest thinker, who cares to be true to the 

 laws of his own mind, and who knows the differ- 

 ence between paying his debts and not paying his 

 debts, will angrily silence these sophists who 

 propose to cheat Truth with vacuous words, and 

 will reply that, until he has proof to the contrary, 

 is 215 



