RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 19 



try is a systematized collection of such facts, ascertained 

 with precision, and so classified and generalized as to enable 

 us to say with certainty, concerning each simple or com- 

 pound substance, what change will occur in it under given 

 conditions. And thus is it with all the sciences. They sev- 

 erally germinate out of the experiences of daily life; insen- 

 sibly as they grow they draw in remoter, more numerous, 

 and more complex experiences; and among these, they as- 

 certain laws of dependence like those which make up our 

 knowledge of the most familiar objects. Nowhere is it pos- 

 sible to draw a line and say here Science begins. And as 

 it is the function of common observation to serve for the 

 guidance of conduct; so, too, is the guidance of conduct 

 the office of the most recondite and abstract inquiries of 

 Science. Through the countless industrial processes and 

 the various modes of locomotion which it has given to us, 

 Physics regulates more completely our social life than does 

 his acquaintance with the properties of surrounding bodies 

 regulate the life of the savage. Anatomy and Physiology, 

 through their effects on the practice of medicine and hy- 

 giene, modify our actions almost as much as does our ac- 

 quaintance with the evils and benefits which common en- 

 vironing agencies may produce on our bodies. All Science 

 is prevision ; and all prevision ultimately aids us in greater 

 or less degree to achieve the good and avoid the bad. As 

 certainly as the perception of an object lying in our path 

 warns us against scumbling over it; so certainly do those 

 more complicated and subtle perceptions which constitute 

 Science, warn us against stumbling over intervening ob- 

 stacles in the pursuit of our distant ends. Thus being one 

 in origin and function, the simplest forms of cognition and 

 the most complex must be dealt with alike. We are bound 

 in consistency to receive the widest knowledge which our 

 faculties can reach, or to reject along with it that narrow 

 knowledge possessed by all. There is no logical alternative 

 between accepting our intelligence in its entirety, or re- 



