268 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO SPECULATION. 



BY PRINCIPAL J. W. DAWSON, LL. D. 



"Do we really exist? If we do, what is the thing called life?" Such are 

 the problems that were discussed by Principal Dawson, of Montreal, a Fellow of 

 the Royal Society and one of the best living scientists in the study of biology, in 

 his lecture at Association Hall, Philadelphia. It was the first of a series of gra- 

 tuitous lectures on "The Relations of Natural Science to Monastic and Agnostic 

 Speculations," given under the auspices of the Crozier Theological Seminary. 



If we ask, said the lecturer, what is science in relation to nature, we have 

 before us all that men have observed of the workings and objects of nature and 

 the deductions therefrom. But added to this is something of another sort, some- 

 times called philosophy, which is really a mass of material, the growth of the 

 thoughts of the times, and this is that' troublesome commodity — modern specula- 

 tion. Evolutionists need the less complain of this view, as it is the natural out- 

 growth of their theory. It by no means follows that our knowledge of recent 

 discoveries equals the extent of their practical application. Take, for instance^ 

 electricity. Its application in a variety of ways is almost general, and yet there 

 are very few things we know less about, either as to its laws or by what it is reg- 

 ulated. There is so much discovery that men are in danger of thinking them- 

 selves omniscient, but in reality the most of the accomplishments of science 

 remain mysteries to mankind. The tendency to mad specialties of study, too, 

 cause a great deal of speculation, covering the whole field to be made, from a 

 point of view that is really restricted. Then there has sprung up a demand for 

 sensational science just as there has sprung up a demand for sensational fiction, 

 and if it cannot be met by facts in existence, something has to be invented, for 

 the number of the half-starved scientific men who are trying to find the secrets of 

 nature is by no means small. Moreover a great deal of supposed scientific truth 

 is vague and does not mean one-half what is supposed. I don't know to what 

 extent science is to be blamed, but not a few of those who have pushed specula- 

 tion to its utmost have been literary men, and some of them had studied theology 

 as well. An agnostic, you know, is literally one who doesn't know. As one of 

 them has expressed the idea, "the existence of a God is unthinkable." The 

 agnostic, while saying less than the atheist, means scientifically more, and steels 

 himself against argument by saying it cannot be reasoned about at all. In the 

 true sense no scientific man can be an agnostic. There are few of us, perhaps, 

 who will refuse to accept the creed, " I exist," although there are some who 

 might limit it, and yet our personal existence is a thing most incomprehensible, 

 especially in regard to its beginning and its ending. 



We are in a boundless space and time, with the beginning of either a mys- 

 tery, so that it is scarcely possible for any one to admit his own existence with- 



