726 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



field — have been patiently observing and arranging facts. Beneath the disguise 

 of endless variety they have detected hints of unity. Conversant with the "un- 

 bounded nature and unitability of particulars," they have drawn nearer and near- 

 er to the subjects that are general and invariable, until, flushed with success and 

 bewildered by the vastness of their deductions, they have invaded almost every 

 realm of thought and emotion, and that, too, in the name of the inductive 

 method. 



There is a dogmatic positiveness too often displayed by scientific teachers — 

 that is on the one hand unhealthful to real knowledge and on the other unwar- 

 rantably presumptuous. The results of this dogmatism are pernicious to the last 

 degree. It drives the man who accepts its authority as final to the bitter conclu- 

 sions that the universe is an eternal machine and himself a transient and insignifi- 

 cant part of it. 



To him " nature conceals God, for through her whole domain nature reveals 

 only fate — only an indissoluble chain of mere efficient causes without beginning 

 and without end, excluding with equal necessity, both providence and chance. 

 An independent agency, a free original commencement within her sphere and 

 proceeding from her powers is absolutely impossible. Working without will, she 

 takes counsel neither of the good nor of the beautiful, creating nothing, she casts ' 

 up from her dark abyss only eternal transformations of herself unconsciously and 

 without an end, farthering with the same ceaseless industry decline and increase, 

 death and life, never producing what alone is of God and what supposes liberty, 

 the virtuous, the immortal." 



Reacting from this soulless materialism, some have reached the other ex- 

 treme. Denying to science the claim of authority which she sets up for herself, 

 they have lapsed into a sentimental mood, in v.'hich unsubstantial imaginings, un- 

 supported by demonstrations or unwarranted by analogy, are vested with supreme 

 authority. This is intellectual lawlessness. Under this order of things diseased 

 imaginations have no check. The grotesque creations of unbalanced minds pos- 

 sess equal authority with the carefully proved deductions from observed facts — 

 the hope of unity and harmony is blotted out — the world of matter becomes chaos 

 again and the world of mind a pandemonium. 



There is ample room for the careful student between these two extremes. 

 He may accord to science all she can justly claim and yet be unfettered. He 

 may also take counsel of his hope and aspirati n concerning the realm in which 

 science can gather no facts for demonstration, and still give no off"ense to reason 

 nor presume upon analogy. 



It becomes us to treat all demonstrated truths with reverence and honesty. 

 It also becomes us to discriminate between proof and assumption, between fact 

 and hypothesis, between certitude and probability. It is susceptible of demon- 

 stration that the majority of the conclusions reached by science are as yet only 

 strong probabilities. What are popularly regarded as facts are in many instances 

 regarded by the specialists as simply hypotheses. It is strangely true that the 

 unscientific, dogmatic spirit of science is not entertained by the great teachers. 



