HEBER D. CURTIS 59 



tinct force, or some other as yet undreamed-of ex- 

 planation, will be what the scientists of a century 

 hence will teach as the law and the gospel. 



As we look back over the discarded scientific theo- 

 ries of the past, once regarded as inspired and now 

 only of historical interest, we are more and more 

 forced to the conclusion that in the final analysis any 

 scientific theory is simply a belief. We believe the 

 present atomic theory instead of the theory of the in- 

 divisible and unchanging atom of forty years ago be- 

 cause it seems to our intellects that it explains more 

 things than did the old hypothesis. As we analyze 

 our acceptance of the last, or the next to the last, of 

 the three successive atomic theories of the past decade 

 or so, there are few scientists, not even the respective 

 authors of the theories themselves, who would be so 

 opinionated as to presume an infinite life for these 

 theories. We feel quite sure, from the experience of 

 the past, that these in their turn will be displaced by 

 other hypotheses, and make their way to the limbo of 

 discarded beliefs. Most of us are inclined to believe 

 that it is a good thing that the absolute authority once 

 assigned to clerical interpreters of theological systems 

 has in a large measure passed. It is a distinct advan- 

 tage to science that it now realizes that it can have no 

 hierarchy to issue infallible and inerrant pronounce- 

 ments. 



Libraries are filled with the pleasant or unpleasant 

 certainties of this or that man-made creed. We re- 

 call those forefathers of ours of that strong northern 

 clan whose joy has always been hard, stern, and com- 

 plicated thinking, we remember their limitations of 



