292 SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY 



( Science is great and wonderful only when she dis- 

 covers her limitations, and sees behind the barriers, 

 the mystery of the infinite. Let Science analyse 

 a red rose into whirling colourless atoms, let her 

 analyse sight and hearing into a dance of molecules, 

 let her analyse marble into a seething sea, and let 

 her show, if she will, that by such analyses she can 

 build up a consistent scheme of the universe, and 

 weigh the sun, and harness Niagara, and vanquish 

 disease. But let Science nevertheless recognise 

 that, starting from the false postulate of the separate 

 objective existence of matter, her extreme results, 

 however convenient and consistent, are not abso- 

 lutely true. Let her recognise that her scheme is 

 nothing more than a convenient working hypothesis, 

 and that she is no nearer the truth when she analyses 

 a rose into whirling atoms than a wind when it 

 analyses it into whirling petals, j Let her, indeed, 

 recognise that the red rose is more real and more 

 true than the dancing hypothesis, to whatsoever 

 practical results the hypothesis may lead, and that 

 the world, as we see and feel it, is more real and 

 more true than the phantasmal things she invents 

 and supposes in order to harmonise and co-ordinate 

 its facts. It is probably more true to say that this 

 paper is white and still than that it is colourless 

 and whirling, since it is the former properties that 

 help to make the concept, paper. It is probably 



