94 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



VIII 



But now we come to the last and closest ques- 

 tion : Is this impression of pantheism really war- 

 ranted ? And here we stand in need of sharp 

 discrimination : there is a way of looking at the 

 course of science, the way we have just been ex- 

 amining, that seems to find the warrant asked for ; 

 and there is an exacter way which will show that 

 the supposed warrant is only an illusion. With 

 the right discrimination, and using the exacter way, 

 we shall find that the inference to pantheism from 

 the method and principles of science, decided as 

 it seems to be, is after all illegitimate. 



Our first precaution in this home-stretch of our 

 inquiry must be to remember that it is not science 

 — not exact and rigorous knowledge — in its entire 

 compass that is involved in our question. It is only 

 "modern science," popularly so called; that is, 

 science taken to mean only the science of Nature. 

 Not only so, but science is in the new context further 

 restricted to signify only what may rightly be de- 

 scribed as the natural science of Nature — so much 

 of the possible knowledge of Nature as can be reached 

 through the channel of the senses critically used ; so 

 much, in short, as will yield itself to a method strictly 

 empirical. Hence the real question is. Whether 



