13 



FACTS AND FANCIES 



— or, rather, the facts and laws with which they 

 are conversant — merely share the fate of other 

 things. Nothing, -however indifferent in itself, 

 can come into human hands without acquiring 

 thereby an ethical, social, political, or even re- 

 ligious, significance. An ounce of lead or a 

 dynamite cartridge may be in itself a thing 

 altogether destitute of any higher significance 

 than that depending on physical properties; 

 but let it pass into the power of man, and at 

 once infinite possibilities of good and of evil 

 cluster round it according to the use to which 

 it may be applied. This depends on essential 

 powers and attributes of man himself, of which 

 he can no more be deprived than matter can 

 be den!i Jed of its inherent properties ; an,d if 

 the evils arising from misuse of these powers 

 trouble us, we may at least console ourselves 

 with the reflection that the possibility of such 

 evils shows man to be a free agent, and not an 

 automaton. 



All this is eminently applicable to science 

 in its relation to agnostic speculations. The 

 material of the physical and natural sciences 

 consists of facts ascertained by the evidence of 

 our senses, and for which we depend on the 

 truthfulness of those senses and the stability 



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