62 



physicist,, and the utmost precision of instruments, merely 

 make certain impressions on the mind ; and those impressions 

 must be interpreted by our intuitions ere they can be of use 

 in science. So then, after all, our primary beliefs, or the in- 

 tuitions of our mind, form the foundation of all scientific 

 reasoning. Dr. Carpenter set this matter in its true light, 

 when he said to the Britisli Association (1872) : — "Even in 

 astronomy, the most exact of the sciences, we cannot proceed 

 a step without translating the actual phenomena of nature into 

 intellectual representations of those phenomena. It is this 

 fundamental truth which gives rise to most of those differences 

 which exist among scientists. The minds of some men are 

 warped by theories ; others entertain peculiar views regarding 

 primary beliefs ; and hence they interpret the very same 

 natural phenomena in widely different ways. Darwin, for 

 example, interprets certain observed phenomena so as to 

 support his favourite theory of evolution ; while Kolliker, a 

 German naturalist of great eminence, interprets the same 

 phenomena in sucli a manner as to favour an opposite view.^' 



One point of supreme importance in regard to our intuitions 

 I must notice ere I close. Among the most potent of our 

 primary beliefs is that of cause and effect. It is, in fact, 

 irresistible. Herbert Spencer thus describes it : — " We cannot 

 think at all about the impressions which the external world 

 produces upon us, without thinking of them as caused ; and 

 we cannot carry out an inquiry concerning their causation, 

 without inevitably committing ourselves to the hypothesis of 

 a First Cause." * Science, by itself, does not reveal, because 

 it cannot reach, that First Cause ; but Science, as we have seen, 

 reveals phenomena which, being rightly interpreted, lead by 

 sound logical sequence to a belief in that First Cause. And 

 the mind by its irresistible intuitions leads us back to the 

 conviction that the First Cause must be in every sense perfect, 

 complete, total ; including within itself all power, and tran- 

 scending all law. It must be one and absolute; it must, in 

 a word, bo the God of Revelation. 



And, further, the mind has other primary beliefs intimately 

 associated with the belief in a First Cause. It has a belief 

 that it is dependent upon a Higher Being, and that it owes 

 allegiance to Him ; it has a consciousness of a moral law, 

 that man is responsible for his obedience or disobedience, and 

 that there is a future state of reward and punishment. This 

 belief in a future state we cannot quench. Do what we will, 

 reason as we will, our higher nature looks away onward, with 



First Principles, p. 3/ 



