332 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
type. Rather may we not say that, properly speaking, Nature is a 
wider term than Physical Science covers, that in the interblending 
of the moral and physical forces of Nature these weak forms are 
used up, if not in evolving directly a more physically vigorous 
race, yet in so drawing out the finer, the more pure and unselfish 
qualities of the strong that the types which in the end do, in 
accordance with the law of Nature, survive, become more noble in 
their strength than they otherwise could have become. By all 
means let the Scientific Spirit have legitimate sway in moulding 
character and conduct; but also let its correlative spirit in the 
moral sphere be a co-operative agency in fashioning the develop- 
ment of the race* 
And here I may ask the question, Is there not a possibility of 
the ideas created by Physical Science not merely gaining a dispro- 
portionate place in the government of conduct, but also raising 
before the imagination exaggerated expectations of human well- 
being 1 It is well known to the modern psychologist that in the 
exercise of any emotion, however refined and just it may be, there 
is a greater disturbance of the nerve centres, and indeed of the 
entire nerve system, from the cerebrum to the outermost point of 
the efferent nerves, than in those mental actions which are known 
as thoughts ; and it follows from this, by a well-known law of 
mental physiology, that whenever emotion and thought coexist, 
thought is apt to become vague and distorted in proportion to the 
strength and constancy of the emotion. Pure intellect is alone 
clear. Now it is very natural that students of Science, and those 
also who read much of its successes, should come under the spell 
of the marvellous reach of discovery made in modern times, and 
that both imagination should be strained and emotion aroused by 
the boundless view of Cosmic unity which it is said to reveal to us. 
The novelty and important bearing on life of the facts ascertained, 
the vast accumulation and orderly arrangement of them, the sus- 
pense in which the mind is held as to what may come next into the 
sphere of known things, and the irrepressible yearning to pass if 
possible the bounds of sensible experience and learn the full and 
final solution of the wondrous whole, cannot but deeply stir the 
feelings of those who enter into the Modern Scientific Spirit ; and, 
as a consequence, there arises a disturbing emotional influence, 
which, acting on the intellectual perception of the bearing of Science 
on human life, tends to exaggeration and distortion. There can be 
