134 FKAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



the nebula to the present time. You never hear tho 

 really philosophical defenders of the doctrine of Uni- 

 formity speaking of impossibilities in nature. They 

 never say, what they are constantly charged with 

 saying, that it is impossible for the Builder of the 

 universe to alter His work. Their business is not witt 

 the possible, but the actual not with a world which 

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

 with a courage not unmixed with reverence, anc 

 according 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 themselves 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 responsibility 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 

 contact with the hampering details of earth, it associates 

 him with a Power which gives fulness and tone to his 

 existence, but which he can neither analyse nor com- 

 prehend, 



