November 11, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



451 



come men of science. Join tlie freemasonry 

 in which Hugh Miller, the poor Cromarty 

 stonemason, in which Michael Faraday, the 

 poor bookbinder's boy, became the compan- 

 ions and friends of the noblest and most 

 learned on earth, looked up to by them not 

 as equals merely, but as teachers and guides, 

 because philosophers and discoverers." 



When Kingsley delivered this message 

 artisans were crowding in thousands to lec- 

 tures in Manchester and other populous 

 places by leaders in the scientific world of 

 that time. Labor then welcomed science as 

 its ally in the struggle for civil rights and 

 spiritual liberty. That battle has been fought 

 and won, and subjects in bitter dispute fifty 

 years ago now repose in the limbo of forgot- 

 ten things. There is no longer a conflict be- 

 tween religion and science, and labor can as- 

 sert its claims in the market-place or council 

 house without fear of repression. Science is 

 likewise free to pursue its own researches and 

 apply its own principles and methods within 

 the realm of observable phenomena, and it 

 does not desire to usurp the functions of 

 faith in sacred dogmas to be perpetually re- 

 tained and infallibly declared. The Eoyal 

 Society of London was founded for the ex- 

 tension of natural knowledge in contra-dis- 

 tinction to the supernatural, and it is content 

 to leave priests and philosophers to describe 

 the world beyond the domain of observation 

 and experiment. When, however, phenomena 

 belonging to the natural world are made sub- 

 jects of supernatural revelation or uncritical 

 inquiry, science has the right to present an 

 attitude of suspicion towards them. Its only 

 interest in mysteries is to discover the natural 

 meaning of them. It does not need messages 

 from the spirit world to acquire a few ele- 

 mentary facts relating to the stellar universe, 

 and it must ask for resistless evidence be- 

 fore observations contrary to all natural law 

 are accepted as scientific truth. If there are 

 circumstances in which matter may be di- 

 vested of the property of mass, fairies may 

 be photographed, lucky charms may deter- 

 mine physical events, magnetic people dis- 

 turb compass needles, and so on, by all means 



let them be investigated, but the burden of 

 proof is upon those who believe in them and 

 every witness will be challenged at the bar 

 of scientific opinion. 



We do not want to go back to the days 

 when absolute credulity was inculcated as a 

 virtue and doubt punished as a crime. It is 

 easy to find in works of uncritical observers 

 of mediaeval times most circumstantial ac- 

 counts of all kinds of astonishing manifesta- 

 tions, but we are not compelled to accept the 

 records as scientifically accurate and to pro- 

 vide natural explanations of them. We need 

 not doubt the sincerity of the observer 

 even when we decline to accept his testimony 

 as scientific truth. The maxim that " See- 

 ing is believing" may be sound enough doc- 

 trine for the majority of people, but it is 

 insufficient as a principle of scientific in- 

 quiry. For thousands of years it led men 

 to believe that the earth was the center of 

 the universe, with the sun and other celes- 

 tial bodies circling round it, and controlling 

 the destiny of man, yet what seemed obvious 

 was shown by Copernicus to be untrue. This 

 was the beginning of the liberation of human 

 life and intellect from the maze of puerile 

 description and philosophic conception. Care- 

 ful observation and crucial experiment later 

 took the place of i)ersonal assertion and showed 

 that events in Nature are determined by 

 permanent law and are not subject to hapha- 

 zard changes by supernatural agencies. WTien 

 this position was gained by science, belief in 

 astrology, necromancy, and sorcery of every 

 kind began to decline, and men learned that 

 they were masters of their own destinies. The 

 late War is responsible for a recrudescence 

 of these mediaeval superstitions, but if natural 

 science is true to the principles by which it 

 has advanced it will continue to bring to 

 bear upon them the piercing light by which 

 civilized man was freed from their baleful 

 consequences. 



There is abundant need for the use of the 

 intellectual enlightenment which science can 

 supply to counteract the ever-present tend- 

 ency of humanity to revert to primitive ideas. 

 Fifty years of compulsory education are but 



