SCIENCE AND RELIGION 213 



It cannot be that Science is satisfied with what 

 it has done in the way of giving an account of 

 things, or supposes that it will soon be able to 

 congratulate itself on having cleared up all myste- 

 ries and explained everything. That is a view 

 held only by the vulgar and half-educated. As 

 we have said so often, Science gives no ultimate 

 explanations. It is not its business to try to do 

 so. When Laplace, answering Napoleon's ques- 

 tion about God, said that he "had no need of 

 that hypothesis," he obviously meant that that 

 august concept was foreign to the astronomical 

 "universe of discourse." Nor can it be said that 

 Science engenders an irreverent spirit; the biog- 

 raphies of all the greatest scientific investigators 

 show the reverse. The irreverent and the un- 

 wondering are to be found among those who 

 know least, not among those who know most. 

 It is true that minor mysteries disappear, or, at 

 least, that they cease to be mysterious in a super- 

 ficial way, but it has been the experience of many 

 a student of Science that when the half -gods go 

 the gods arrive. 



To understand the antithesis we must remember 

 how our habitual occupation influences the mind. 

 It is the everyday business of Science to work with 

 facts, to describe these, testing and measuring, 

 to search out causes, to discover chains of sequence 

 and all in such a way that the work done may 



