Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/852

When the scientist transcends these limits, and then only, he is going beyond the bounds of science. The temptation to stroll about, regardless of limits, is often great, and the scientist, like most of his kindred, frequently indulges in these aberrations. When thus found, he is entitled to no consideration on account of any sovereignty he may claim to exercise in his usual habitat, and, if overthrown, may be drawn and quartered at the will of his victorious enemy without a remonstrance being uttered by his fellow scientists. He thus occupies a dual position: in one the knowledge he possesses gives to his assertions a certain authority and to his hypotheses a certain probability of which they are devoid in the other. The discussion and consideration of religious questions by scientific men is a common illustration of this; but the attempt to throw the weight of scientific authority on to one side or the other of any question regarding supra-sensible objects should be steadily frowned down. The acceptance of a thorough nominalism in science and as thorough a realism in religion is by no means incompatible. Faraday is reported to have replied, to an inquiry as to how he, with his well-known scientific rigor of thought, could hold certain religious opinions, that he did not subject those opinions to scientific tests, as he well knew they could not survive them. Nevertheless, he held them as firmly as though convinced of their scientific soundness. The knowledge of the disintegration of the body after death may coexist with a strong religious faith in its resurrection. A large proportion of scientific men hold religious beliefs for which they have, and care for, no scientific justification. The logical soundness of such a position we will not here discuss. All that we care to do now is to assert most strongly that in science abstractions have no "real" existence, and that, when the scientist says that the explanation of certain powers of animal life by the term "vitality" is no explanation, or that consciousness is dependent upon organization, or uses any of the thousand and one kindred abstractions in a scientific sense, it is sheer meddling to interfere. Were the duty of keeping metaphysics at home inculcated with half the ardor that is used in urging science not to stray, we should hear much less of the conflict between religion and science. As it is, the modern Quixotes see in every scientific definition an imaginary giant, which it is their duty and privilege to destroy. Would they observe a little more closely, they would discover the harmless mechanism of the structure, and would reserve their energies for attacks upon more vulnerable enemies.