RATIONALISM AND SCIENCE 223 



no other foundation than truth can any lofty or durable 

 system of ethics be reared."^ 



(13) " Human reason is the highest product of earthly 

 evolution, the apex and not the ground of man's exist- 

 ence. ^ 



I do not think this author can be a scientifically 

 trained man ; for he would have known that science can 

 by no means be trusted so far as he writes about it. 

 The very term " provisional or working hypothesis," 

 which scientific men constantly employ, indicates the 

 uncertainties associated with the pursuit of various 

 branches of science. Some have never got beyond it, 

 as the proving the existence and nature of ether. 



This author appears to limit science to " observation 

 and experiment" (4, 5, 8,) and says it "lays bare the 

 natural causes of all phenomena". 



No scientific man will endorse that statement. We 

 can readily recall a few phenomena of which science has 

 never yet laid bare the cause. 



In astronomy, what was the original cause of rota- 

 tion? 



In chemistry, what is the cause of chemical affini- 

 ties ? Haeckel's erotic theory is too puerile for con- 

 sideration. 



In physics, what is the cause of gravity and the cor- 

 relation of forces generally ? 



In biology, what is the cause of the translation of 

 molecular vibrations in the brain to consciousness ? 



Science may try to lay bare these causes, but she has 

 never yet succeeded and probably never will. 



We all know that science is not infallible now : what 

 what was it before the nineteenth century ? A mass of 



1 P. 151. ^Pp. 212, 213. 



