14 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT. 
stands in connection with these objects, if its conditions 
are moral and not arbitrary, it is not contrary to nature 
and its purpose, but in the highest sense conformable 
to it.” 
Thus as soon as belief in miracle comes into conflict 
with the investigation of nature, it says: “ You overstep 
your limits, and must here suspend your judgment. 
It is a question of a higher moral object; the domain 
of ethics is higher than that of physics, and therefore 
a higher causality, which physicists have no right to 
criticise, has suspended the chain of cause and effect 
with which you naturalists are familiar.” This passage’, 
in which one of the most learned and honoured 
champions of the belief in miracle lays down, like a 
sophist, the limits of the investigation of nature, is, 
however, among the most moderate of its kind. But our 
point of view and our logic differ radically from that 
of antagonists of this description, in one particular, 
namely, that to us the opposite to knowledge is igno- 
rance, whereas they supplement knowledge by a so- 
called higher knowledge, and by faith. 
While holding by the maxim of Pico della Mirandola, 
“Philosophy seeks, Theology finds, Religion possesses 
the Truth,”? it is forgotten that there are truths and 
truths. The subjective visions and sensations of sound 
by which the mentally diseased are excited and alarmed, 
are to them a reality, yet a reality quite different to that 
of the sights and sounds received through the healthy 
organs of the senses. Philosophy and science seek that 
truth which is deduced from the palpable connection 
of things. But the other truths, so often negatived by 
the former, are generally impalpable, and are incom- 
