NIGHTMARES DESTROYED BY SCIENCE 399 



science — the knowledge of the order of nature— that it 

 does not tell us "why we are here." Man inevitably 

 desires to know why he is here ; but " science," as that 

 word is now understood, does not profess or even seek to 

 answer that question, afthough the false hope has been 

 raised in ignorant minds, sometimes by knavery, sometimes 

 by honest delusion, that it could do so. By knowledge of 

 nature mankind can escape much suffering and gain the 

 highest happiness, but that is all that we can hope for 

 from it. We shall never satisfy our curiosity ; we shall 

 never know in the same way as we know the order of 

 nature, why — to what end, for what purpose — that order 

 and not another order»exists. 



It is very generally supposed that it is the business and 

 profession of science " to explain " things — that is to say, 

 to show how this or that must and does come about in 

 consequence of the operation of the great general pro- 

 perties of matter, known as the "laws " of chemistry and 

 physics. This is true enough, but it is equally the work 

 of science to assert that of many things for which mankind 

 demands " an explanation," there is no explanation. It 

 is further the work and the service of science to destroy 

 and to remove from men's minds the baseless and pre- 

 tended " explanations " which are no explanations but 

 causes of error, blindness, and suffering. 



Science, the destroyer of " explanations," is the purifier 

 of the human mind, its cleanser from the crippling infec- 

 tion of prehistoric error and from domination by the 

 terrifying nightmares of our half-animal ancestry.; 



Finally, in reference to the very ancient attempt to 

 "explain" life and consciousness by the assertion that 

 they are due to " spirits " which enter the bodies of 

 animals and men, I must caution the reader against 

 supposing that — for those who do not accept the belief 

 that such spirits exist — the gravity and mystery of the 



