303 
What then is to be done with this conflict? Why, in 
the first place, the processes on both sides mast be re- 
examined and worked out over and over again, to discover, 
if possible, where the human mistake lies. And finally, if 
this cannot be discovered, we can only conclude that the 
reason of the apparent contradiction lies in our imperfect 
data, our incomplete knowledge of facts, and that, in pro- 
portion as this want is supplied, the conflict will diminish and 
finally disappear. 
Thus it appears that the processes of scientific investigation 
are about equally divided between the observer and the 
reasoner. All the collection of the materials of reason, of the 
data on which the premises rest, depends upon the observer. 
Into this sphere the untrained mind has no right to enter, 
and it would be presumptuous for any but a man of science to 
pronounce an opinion. Within this sphere we must trust to 
Christian men of science to check and test by every rigid 
method the observations of the sceptical man of science. 
But the province of the observer, and consequently the 
sphere of his peculiar technical aptitude, close with the 
collection of the materials. Here the province of the reasoner 
begins, and here the scientific explorer has no advantage 
whatever, and has no right to claim any. The minute con- 
centration of mind upon details must rather tend to contract, 
and thus to weaken, the thinking powers, and destroy that 
breadth of view, and that patient testing of an argument, 
link by link and premiss by premiss, which constitutes the 
strength of the reasoner. To say the least, there is no special 
advantage, and to assume the authority of science for all the 
conclusions formed in matters of science, is folly. There may 
be as much bigotry and fanaticism in the geologist, the 
chemist, or the astronomer, as in the theologian ; yet it 
must be evident, in a process when observation and reasoning 
constitute two connected, independent, yet closely affiliated 
processes, that a mistake in one half of the processes is as fatal 
to the conclusion as a mistake in the other. No weight of 
authority can make a bad argument into a good one, or 
can convert an assumption into a proof. Into the proper 
province of the observer it would be presumption for a 
stranger to tread. To take, for instance, Mr. Darwin's book 
on the origin of species, I should not dare to pronounce an 
opinion on his statement and classification of facts, but when 
he begins to reason I hold myself as competent to judge 
whether his facts support his conclusion, and whether his 
conclusion be consistent or not with our ascertained know- 
ledge in other provinces of inquiry, as he is himself. 
