336 THE FOUNDATIONS OF ZOOLOGY 



bility even for an instant ; for he asserts that it is because exact 

 science does help one to walk with sure feet where others grope 

 and stumble, that the promotion of natural knowledge is the first 

 and highest of duties. How can one who knows that natural 

 knowledge does correct our judgment and help us to avoid the 

 dangers that beset and destroy the ignorant, ask whether nature 

 is a language profitable to direct ? 



"I sometimes feel," says Holmes, "as if I should like to found 

 a school to teach the ignorance of what people do not want to 

 know." 



If we are sure nature is useful, need any one care to ask 

 whether it is necessary or arbitrary ? " What have you to do 

 with liberty and necessity 1 or what more than to hold your tongue 

 about it .' " asks Johnson of Boswell. 



"The attitude of Modern Science is erect, her aspect serene, 

 her determination inexorable, her onward movement unflinching, 

 because she believes herself, in the order of Providence, the true 

 successor of those men of old who brought down the light of 

 heaven to men. Humility may be taken for granted as existing 

 in every sane human being; but it may be that it most truly 

 manifests itself to-day in the readiness with which we bow to new 

 truths as they come from the scholars, the teachers, to whom the 

 inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding."^ 



Paley sometimes argues that even if the finder of the watch 

 were without knowledge of watchmakers, or other human con- 

 trivers, proof of design is to be found in the adjustment between 

 its movements and those of the earth ; while it is equally clear 

 that, in other passages, he bases his argument on the analogy 

 between the mechanism of nature and the works of human 

 mechanics. After comparing the eye with a telescope, he asks : 

 "What could a mathematical instrument maker have done more 

 to show his knowledge of his principles, his application of that 

 knowledge, his suiting of his means to his ends .? " On the other 

 hand, his opening passage, in which his thesis is developed, 

 makes no reference to human contrivers. " Suppose I found 

 a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the 



1 Holmes, " Mechanism in Thought and Morals." 



