XII 



THE PLEASURES OF SCIENCE 



THE greatest pleasure of life is the pleasure of 

 knowledge, the knowledge of what men have 

 thought and done in the world — their history, their 

 literature, their religion, their philosophy. But I am 

 going to speak here of a particular kind of knowl- 

 edge — the knowledge that has come to us through 

 the discoveries and the deductions of modern sci- 

 ence. This is comparatively new knowledge, but it 

 now modifies or colors all our old conceptions of the 

 universe. Yet a great many educated persons feel 

 but a languid interest in it. Its impersonal and 

 strictly objective character rather repels them. 

 There is a widespread feeling that it kills poetry and 

 romance, and is the enemy of religion. Of the old 

 historical religions founded largely upon man's 

 credulity and superstition, it surely is the enemy. It 

 discloses to us new ground for wonder and awe in 

 the presence of the universe, and gives to the moral 

 law a surer foundation than can be found in the 

 dictum of any creed or sect. 



The childish conception of nature of the pre- 

 scientific age we are lucky to get rid of. Do we ex- 

 perience any sense of loss when we find out that 

 echo is not a nymph hiding there in the wood or in 



174) 



