LECTURES AND ESSA YS 



Those who hold the doctrine of Evo- 

 lution are by no means ignorant of the 

 uncertainty of their data, and they only 

 yield to it a provisional assent. They 

 regard the nebular hypothesis as pro- 

 bable, and, in the utter absence of any 

 evidence to prove the act illegal, they 

 .extend the method of nature from the 

 .present into the past. Here the observed 

 uniformity of nature is their only guide. 

 Within the long range of physical 

 inquiry they have never discerned in 

 nature the insertion of caprice. Through- 

 out this range the laws of physical and 

 intellectual continuity have run side by 

 side. Having thus determined the 

 elements of their curve in a world of 

 observation and experiment, they prolong 

 that curve into an antecedent world, 

 .and accept as probable the unbroken 

 sequence of development from the nebula 

 to the present time. You never hear 

 the really philosophical defenders of the 

 doctrine of Uniformity speaking of 

 impossibilities in nature. They never 

 say, what they are constantly charged 

 with saying, that it is impossible for the 

 Builder of the universe to alter His 

 work. Their business is not with the 

 possible, but the actual not with a 

 world which might be, but with a world 



that is. This they explore with a courage 

 not unmixed with reverence, and accord- 

 ing to methods which, like the quality 

 of a tree, are tested by their fruits. They 

 have but one desire to know the truth. 

 They have but one fear to believe a 

 lie. And if they know the strength of 

 science, and rely upon it with unswerving 

 trust, they also know the limits beyond 

 which science ceases to be strong. They 

 best know that questions offer themselves 

 to thought which science, as now prose- 

 cuted, has not even the tendency to 

 solve. They have as little fellowship 

 with the atheist who says there is no 

 God as with the theist who professes 

 to know the mind of God. " Two 

 things," said Immanuel Kant, "fill me 

 with awe : the starry heavens, and the 

 sense of moral responsibility in man." 

 And in his hours of health and strength 

 and sanity, when the stroke of action 

 has ceased, and the pause of reflection 

 has set in, the scientific investigator 

 finds himself overshadowed by the same 

 awe. Breaking contact with the hamper- 

 ing details of earth, it associates him 

 with a Power which gives fulness and 

 tone to his existence, but which he can 

 neither analyse nor comprehend. 



SCIENCE AND MAN 1 



A MAGNET attracts iron; but when we 

 analyse the effect we learn that the 

 metal is not only attracted but repelled, 

 the final approach to the magnet being 

 due to the difference of two unequal 

 and opposing forces. Social progress is 

 for the most part typified by this duplex 

 or polar action. As a general rule, every 

 advance is balanced by a partial retreat, 



every amelioration is associated more or 

 less with deterioration. No great mecha- 

 nical improvement, for example, is intro- 

 duced for the benefit of society at large 

 that does not bear hardly upon indivi- 

 duals. Science, like other things, is 

 subject to the operation of this polar 

 law, what is good for it under one aspect 

 being bad for it under another. 



1 Presidential Address, delivered before the Birmingham and Midland Institute, October 1st, 

 1877 ; with additions. 



