SCIENCE AND RELIGION 



ie will not make haste to adopt transcendental 

 explanations of particular events. As Prof. 

 Boutroux puts it: "The history of science proves 

 that we have a right to affirm a continuity be- 

 tween what we know and what we do not know. 

 This is why the expression, * scientifically inexplic- 

 able,' is really without meaning. A mysterious 

 force, a miraculous fact, assuming that the fact 

 exists, what is it but a phenomenon which we 

 are unable to explain with the help of the laws 

 that we at present know. If the impossibility is 

 confirmed, science will go on to seek for other 

 laws." 



In this connection, we venture to quote a 

 well-known passage from the late Prof. William 

 James's Will to Believe (1903). "When one turns 

 to the magnificent edifice of the physical sciences, 

 and sees how it was reared; what thousands of 

 disinterested moral lives of men lie buried in its 

 mere foundations; what patience and postpone- 

 ment, what choking down of preference, what sub- 

 mission to the icy laws of outer fact are wrought 

 into its very stones and mortar; how absolutely 

 impersonal it stands in its vast augustness, 

 then how besotted and contemptible seems every 

 little sentimentalist who comes blowing his vol- 

 untary smoke-wreaths, and pretending to decide 

 things from out of his private dream! Can we 

 wonder if those bred in the rugged and manly 



