614 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 
always will be but approximately expressed in human language. Our way of 
looking at Nature and of speaking about her varies from year to year; but a 
fact once seen, a relation of cause and effect once demonstratively apprehended, 
are possessions which neither change nor pass away but, on the contrary, form 
fixed centres about which other truths aggregate by natural affinity.’ 
The rise of Science is due to the introduction of the experimental method. 
Mr. Balfour, in arguing, as he has done recently, that Science rests upon 
many unprovable postulates and therefore does not differ in method from 
metaphysics, has made assertions which cannot be allowed to pass as correct 
True Science rests wholly upon fact and upon logic: all else is mere provisional 
hypothesis—a garment we are prepared to put aside at any moment if cause be 
shown. We are well aware that human nature is always intervening to spoil 
our work ; it is human to err, and false doctrine may easily occupy the attention 
for a time, but we are fully conscious of our limitations and prepared to admit 
them, whilst we feel that we are ever advancing towards security of knowledge. 
The method of Science, indeed, is the method of the Chancery Court—it 
involves the collection of all available evidence and the subjection of all such 
evidence to the most searching examination and cross-examination. False evi- 
dence may be tendered and for the time being accepted; but sooner or later 
the perjury is discovered. Our method, in fact, goes beyond that of the courts : 
we are not only always prepared to reconsider our judgments but always search- 
ing for fresh evidence; we dare to be positive only when, time after time, the 
facts appear to warrant a definite conclusion. But there are few instances in 
which we have travelled so far. The Newtonian theory of gravitation, the 
Daltonian theory of atoms, are two striking examples of generalisations which 
fit all the facts, to which exceptions are not known; should any exception 
be met with we should at once doubt the sufficiency of such theories. In cases 
such as Mr. Balfour has discussed—the problems of metaphysics and of belief— 
experiment and observation are impossible: we can only resort to speculative 
reasoning ; our belief, if we have one, is necessarily founded upon intangibilities 
and desires. 
‘ There was a door to which I found no key : 
There was a veil past which I could not see; 
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee 
There seemed—and then no more of Thee and Me.’ 
The awful problem before us at the present time is to decide which direction 
we will take, to what extent and in what way we have the right to teach things 
which transcend our knowledge; the way in which truth lies may be clear to 
some of us but can never be to the majority. Those who wrap up such matters in 
a tangle of words are not helpful, to say the least. However mellifluous the 
terms of Bergsonian philosophy may be, they do not bear analysis when the 
attempt is made to interpret them; their effect is merely sensuous, like that of 
cathedral music. 
But in order that she may lead, Science must herself set an unimpeachable 
example—far too much that is now taught under the guise of Science is pure 
dogma; in fact, the philosophy of the schools is mostly dogma. The true legal 
habit of mind is insufficiently cultivated and but rarely developed even among 
scientific workers—our logic is too often an imperfect one. In Science, as in 
ordinary life, party politics run high and scientific workers are usually, for the 
time being, party politicians. We are too often crass specialists, always very 
human: indeed, whatever the lines along which Evolution has taken place, 
they cannot well have been such as to favour in any considerable degree the 
development of the proclivities which distinguish the scientific inquirer: time 
after time, doubtless, he has been knocked on the head, and the spread of his 
kind prevented; now we too often lame him, if we do not kill him, by faulty 
education. 
The difficulties under which Science labours in our schools are partly internal, 
partly external. Tradition and the type of mind of the average teacher favour 
set lessons and literary study by blocks of learners; the extra cost of the work 
is considerable, when the expense of the special requirements is taken into 
account; more time and more individual effort are demanded both from teacher 
