134 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



side. Having thus determined the elements of their 

 curve in a world of observation and experiment, they 

 prolong that curve into an antecedent world, and ac- 

 cept as probable the unbroken sequence of development 

 from the nebula to the present time. You never hear 

 the really philosophical defenders of the doctrine of 

 Uniformity speaking of impossibilities in nature. They 

 never say, what they are constantly charged with say- 

 ing, that it is impossible for the Builder of the uni- 

 verse to alter His work. Their business is not with 

 the possible, but the actual not with a world which 

 might be, but with a world that is. This they explore 

 with a courage not unmixed with reverence, and ac- 

 cording to methods which, like the quality of a tree, 

 are tested by their fruits. They have but one desire 

 to know the truth. They have but one fear to 

 believe a lie. And if they know the strength of 

 science, and rely upon it with unswerving trust, they 

 also know the limits beyond which science ceases to be 

 strong. They best know that questions offer them- 

 selves to thought, which science, as now prosecuted, 

 has not even the tendency to solve. They have as little 

 fellowship with the atheist who says there is no God, as 

 with the theist who professes to know the mind of God. 

 ' Two things,' said Immanuel Kant, ( fill me with awe: 

 the starry heavens, and the sense of moral responsibil- 

 ity in man.' And in his hours of health and strength and 

 sanity, when the stroke of action has ceased, and the pause 

 of reflection has set in, the scientific investigator finds 

 himself overshadowed by the same awe. Breaking con- 

 tact with the hampering details of earth, it associates him 

 with a Power which gives fulness and tone to his exist- 

 ence, but which he can neither analyse nor comprehend. 



