CHAPTER XLVIII.
WHY AND HOW.—"THE STRUGGLING RAY OF LIGHT FROM THOSE FARTHERMOST OUTREACHES."
"Confronting mankind there stands a sphinx—the vast Unknown. However well a man may be informed concerning a special subject, his farthermost outlook concerning that subject is bounded by an impenetrable infinity."
"Granted," I interrupted, "that mankind has not by any means attained a condition of perfection, yet you must admit that questions once regarded as inscrutable problems are now illuminated by the discoveries of science."
"And the 'discovered,' as I will show, has only transferred ignorance to other places," he replied. "Science has confined its labors to superficial descriptions, not the elucidation of the fundamental causes of phenomena."
"I can not believe you, and question if you can prove what you say."
"It needs no argument to illustrate the fact. Science boldly heralds her descriptive discoveries, and as carefully ignores her explanatory failures. She dare not attempt to explain the why even of the simplest things. Why does the robin hop, and the snipe walk? Do not tell me this is beneath the notice of men of science, for science claims that no subject is outside her realm. Search your works on natural history and see if your man of science, who describes the habits of these birds, explains the reason for this evident fact. How does the tree-frog change its color? Do not answer me in the usual superficial manner concerning the reflection of light, but tell me why the skin of that creature is enabled to perform this function? How does the maple-tree secrete a sweet, wholesome sap, and deadly nightshade, growing in the same soil and living on the same elements, a poison? What is it that your scientific men find in the cells of root, or rootlet, to indicate that one may produce a
