590 MODERN METHODS OF SCIENCE. 
whether in the earth, sun, stars, or nebulæ, all telling the same 
dissimilarity and no coalescence. 
Is this to be one of the methods of modern science, I would 
ask? While in our ignorance and short-sightedness we should be 
careful in pronouncing any assumption as possible or impossible, 
still there is no reason why these terms should have much or any 
weight in the study of science; for in the abstract all things in 
nature are possible, not from any demonstration, but simply 
because no one can assert an impossibility. What a mass of con- 
fusion science would become if we studied its possibilities! for 
then every conceivable possibility would be entitled to equal con- 
sideration. And we are not therefore surprised that the author 
last quoted should say, “ So then we may proceed to theorize in 
the most barefaced manner, without quitting the legitimate do- 
*main of science.” i 
Are we to introduce into science a kind of purgatory into which 
to place undemonstrable speculations, and keep them there in a 
state of probation, and say that science cannot discard a theory 
as false when it cannot be accepted as true? Science, which is 
preéminently the pursuit of truth, has but one course to pursue: 
it must either accept or reject what may be thrust upon it. 
What I have said is, in my humble opinion, warranted by the 
departure Darwin and others have made from true science in their 
purely speculative studies; and neither he nor any other searcher 
atter truth expects to hazard great and startling opinions without 
at the same time courting and desiring criticism; yet dissension 
from his views in no way proves him wrong —it only shows how 
his ideas impress the minds of other men. And just here let me 
contrast the daring of Darwin with the position assumed by one 
of the great French naturalists of the present day, Professor 
Quatrefages, in a recent discourse on the physical character of 
the human race. In referring to the question of the first origin 
of man he says distinetly that in his opinion it is one that belongs — 
not to science; these questions are treated by theologians and 
philosophers: “ Neither here nor at the Museum am I, nor do I 
wish to be, either a theologian or a philosopher. I am simply a 
man of science ; and it is in the name of comparative physiology, 
_ of botanical and zoological geography, of geology and palæontol- 
Oey, in the name of the laws which govern man as well as animals 
3, tata have Te spoken.” And studying man as 4. 
