V MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS 193 



meaning better than I seem to have done, I doubt 

 if this particular proffer of Mr. Gladstone's thanks 

 would have been made. 



To my mind, whatever doctrine professes to be 

 the result of the application of the accepted rules 

 of inductive and deductive logic to its subject- 

 matter; and which accepts, within the limits which 

 it sets to itself, the supremacy of reason, is Science. 

 Whether the subject-matter consists of realities or 

 unrealities, truths or falsehoods, is quite another 

 question. I conceive that ordinary geometry is 

 science, by reason of its method, and I also believe 

 that its axioms, definitions, and conclusions are 

 all true. However, there is a geometry of four 

 dimensions, which I also believe to be science, 

 because its method professes to be strictly scientific. 

 It is true that I cannot conceive four dimensions 

 in space, and therefore, for me, the whole affair is 

 unreal. But I have known men of great intel- 

 lectual powers who seemed to have no difficulty 

 either in conceiving them, or, at any rate, in 

 imagining how they could conceive them ; and, 

 therefore, four-dimensioned geometry comes un- 

 der my notion of science. So I think astrology 

 is a science/ in so far as it professes to reason 

 logically from principles established by just induc- 

 tive methods. To prevent misunderstanding, per- 

 haps I had better add that I do not believe one 

 whit in astrology ; but no more do I believe in 



Ptolemaic astronomy, or in the catastrophic 

 102 



