SCIENCE AND THE BOOK 27/1 



get is a close approach to certainty, and with this we 

 must be content. In many matters, indeed in most 

 matters, we must trust the judgment of others who 

 are better trained in a particular line of thought. 



As to the truth of geology we are certainly wise 

 to accept for the present the facts and principles com- 

 monly accepted by competent geologists. In biology, 

 we should respect the concurrent opinion of impor- 

 tant biologists. We must not assume that a few 

 biologists who think as we do are right against the 

 biological world, or that a few geologists who think 

 as we do are right against the geological world. For 

 theology, we had better go to the educated theo- 

 logian. But when it comes to reconciling two of 

 these and to catching the inherent correspondence 

 between them, it is often likely that each of these 

 groups of men is unable to see clearly the view-point 

 of the other. Here lies our freedom. Here we must 

 either think for ourselves or think with those wiser 

 than ourselves whose opinions seem to us to ring true 

 and to focus for us our wavering and uncertain 

 thought. 



Among students of animals and plants there is 

 no longer any question as to the truth of evolution. 

 That the animals of the present are the altered ani- 

 mals of the past, that the plants of to-day are the 



