210 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



threaten this island, than the laws of princes or the swords 

 of emperors. We fought and won our battle even in the 

 Middle Ages: should we doubt the issue of another con- 

 flict with our broken foe? 



The impregnable position of science may be described 

 in a few words. We claim, and we shall wrest from the- 

 ology, the entire domain of cosmological theory. All 

 schemes and systems which thus infringe upon the do- 

 main of science must, in so far as they do this, submit 

 to its control, and relinquish all thought of controlling it. 

 Acting otherwise proved always disastrous in the past, 

 and it is simply fatuous to-day. Every system which 

 would escape the fate of an organism too rigid to adjust 

 itself to its environment, must be plastic to the extent 

 that the growth of knowledge demands. When this truth 

 has been thoroughly taken in, rigidity will be relaxed, 

 exclusiveness diminished, things now deemed essential will 

 be dropped, and elements now rejected will be assimi- 

 lated. The lifting of the life is the essential point; and 

 as long as dogmatism, fanaticism, and intolerance are kept 

 out, various modes of leverage may be employed to raise 

 life to a higher level. 



Science itself not infrequently derives motive power 

 from an ultra-scientific source. Some of its greatest dis- 

 coveries have been made under the stimulus of a non- 

 scientific ideal. This was the case among the ancients, 

 and it has been so among ourselves. Mayer, Joule, and 

 Colding, whose names are associated with the greatest of 

 modern generalizations, were thus influenced. With his 

 usual insight, Lange at one place remarks that "it is not 

 always the objectively correct and intelligible that helps 

 man most, or leads most quickly to the fullest and truest 



