The History of Things 87 



What we have been trying to show is, that the 

 conception of this earth of ours with which Science 

 works, and works to such purpose — both theoreti- 

 cal and practical — is the conception of a continu- 

 ous natural development in which any particular 

 series of sequences is describable in terms of mat- 

 ter and motion. But why should the scientific 

 mind be so afraid of the insinuation of a metaphys- 

 ical principle? Simply because it is a confusion 

 of thought that paralyzes intelligence. 



What we are driving at has been clearly stated 

 by Prof. A. Seth Pringle-Pattison : i "Natural 

 explanations — i. e., regulated sequences and co- 

 existences of phenomena — are what every sci- 

 ence has to seek in its own sphere; and, ac- 

 cordingly, science justly regards as suspect the 

 explanation of any phenomena by the immedi- 

 ate causality of a metaphysical agent. The inter- 

 jection of such a causality into the empirical con- 

 nections which she seeks to unravel, she treats as 

 a form of ignava ratio.'' "It makes the investi- 

 gation of causes a very easy task," says Kant, "if 

 we refer such and such phenomena immediately 

 to the unsearchable will and counsel of the Su- 

 preme Wisdom, whereas we ought to investigate 

 their cause in the general mechanism of nature. 

 This is to consider the labor of reason as ended, 



^ "The New Psychology and Automatism" in Man's 

 Place in the Cosmos and Other Essays, 2nd ed., 1902. 



