225 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



If we turn to metaphysicians, we find, on the other 

 hand, that reason is from one cause or another somewhat 

 slighted in certain directions. Thus Prof H. Jones says: 

 " No age has employed reason more, nor trusted it less, 

 than our own ".' He contrasts the estimate of reason 

 in two regions by saying : " If, on the one hand, the great 

 mass of the ' expert evidence ' of philosophers, psycholo- 

 gists and theologians is condemnatory of human reason, 

 the practical confidence of the day in the uses of the 

 intelligence remains, on the other hand, quite unshaken," 

 . . . but " scientific men themselves are unable to deny 

 that their premisses are only ' working hypotheses,' and 

 their whole procedure, in the last resort, only tentative ", 



He is here encroaching upon, if not contradicting, the 

 Rationalist's creed. For Materialistic Monists, as we have 

 seen, base everything on what they believe has been 

 thoroughly " reasoned out," vi^., Darwinism, though it 

 is proved to have been based on a false premise. 



Then Prof Jones adds : " Thus at the very moment 

 when human reason is charged in the high places of 

 abstract thought with every weakness, it is believed to 

 be bringing in a richer harvest of practically valid truth 

 than the world has seen at any other period of its history ". 



He then classifies the sciences as follows : " It may 

 be maintained, and with some truth, that it is only in the 

 field of physical inquiry that man's natural powers have 

 unequivocally proved their strength. The supraphysical 

 sciences, such as Biology, Physiology, Psychology, An- 

 thropology, Political Economy — not to mention Ethics, 

 Social and Political Philosophy, Theology and Meta- 

 physics — lack the demonstrative security and the predic- 

 tive power of the Mathematical and Physical sciences." 



1 " Reflective Thought and Religion," Hibbcrt Jourii., i., p. 229, etc, 



