314 LAUGEL'S PROBLEMS OF NATURE AND LIFE. 



entitled c Science et Philosophic ' and ' Problemes de la 

 Nature,' discuss, in the spirit and style we have just 

 denoted, the general principles, aims, and methods of 

 modern science. His mind readily embarks in those 

 bolder enterprises of speculation which formerly could 

 only be deemed the vagaries of thought, but have now 

 been sanctioned by deeper research into the mysterious 

 laws of nature more wonderful in their reality than 

 any imaginations of untutored genius or of the wildest 

 fancy. With the new licence, however, thus obtained, 

 there is still need of much control over this modern 

 spirit of philosophy. Hypothesis in many cases an 

 admirable minister to the discovery of truth is often 

 stretched too far, and into regions inaccessible to 

 human research. The interlopers and dabblers in 

 science those who, to take Lord Bacon's words, ' will 

 not wait the harvest, but attempt to mow the moss and 

 reap the green corn ' are most at fault here ; but 

 these are many and active in their generation. The 

 phraseology of true science is easily caught up and 

 easily misapplied ; and the genuine coin becomes dis- 

 credited by the base. This evil partially remedies itself 

 through the wonted incongruity of all such naked 

 hypotheses. In physics nothing that is unproved can 

 ever find permanent place. 



On this general topic, however, we must carry our 

 remarks a step farther. That truth is the sole legiti- 

 mate object of human enquiry is easily and familiarly 

 said ; but in seeking for truth it is useful, and even 

 needful, to recognise in the outset that there are things 

 which man troweth not things which, though realities 



