32 MODERN DIFFICULTIES 



diction be established in this matter between catholic 

 doctrine and the evolutionary hypothesis/ In saying 

 this I shut out from consideration the inferences from 

 this hypothesis which naturalistic philosophers make. 

 These inferences are not scientific, but purely specu- 

 lative.^ 



Particular sciences, we have seen, are limited in their 

 possibilities by the fragmentariness of their respective 

 subject-matters — as if we should investigate one side 

 of a triangle, in utter isolation from the other sides, and 

 expect thus to gain an adequate understanding of its 

 place and value in the triangle. But sciences are also 

 limited by the very partial nature of the knowledge 

 that can be obtained even of the data with which they 

 are especially concerned. It is impossible within the 

 limited time at my disposal adequately to illustrate this 

 statement, which is, however, quite indisputable. In 

 every sphere of physical science the known is like the 

 area of light produced by a camp fire in the midst of 

 surrounding darkness. And, although the known con- 

 tinually becomes more extensive, the unknown remains 

 ever an overwhelmingly vast terra incognita. My 

 thought is justified at large by Professor James Ward's 

 Naturalism and Agnosticism, a work which I commend 

 most earnestly to your attention. He shows with 

 abundant illustrations that, inasmuch as the physical 

 sciences treat of phemonena in their mechanical aspects 



1 See pp. 1 08, 156, below. 



2 Illingworth points out, in Reason and Revelation, pp. 245, 246, 

 that the alleged conflict between theology and natural science is 

 really between theology and speculative philosophy. 



