Читать книгу The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer - Gerard John - Страница 5
II
REASON AND SCIENCE
ОглавлениеIN studying a question such as this, we must commence by being determined, on the one hand to accept nothing as true but what our reason warrants us in believing, and on the other hand to follow the guidance of reason as far as, rightly used, it will lead us. The principle formulated5 by Professor Huxley, as the foundation-stone of what he termed "Agnosticism," is that which must needs be adopted, and as a matter of fact has ever been adopted, by rational men.
Positively – in matters of the intellect follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively – in matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.
But to justify the confidence which we thus repose in it we must obviously be careful to use our reason aright, and not to attribute to it any conclusions which it does not really sanction. It is this right use of reason that is specially claimed for modern "Science,"6 which, as we are again assured by Professor Huxley, is only another name for sound reasoning – "Science," he declares,7 "is, I believe, nothing but trained and organized common-sense.8 … The man of science, in fact, simply uses with scrupulous exactness, the methods which we all, habitually and at every moment, use carelessly."
There can be no sort of question that so long as men of science really act thus, and confine themselves to the treatment of matters in regard of which they can claim special knowledge, common sense bids us listen to them with respect, and even with submission. But the same common sense requires that we should satisfy ourselves that they truly deserve the character assigned them, and pretend to no knowledge on the score of Science but what their scientific methods are competent to acquire. When they step beyond this their own proper domain, whatever weight may be given to their opinions upon other grounds, they cease to speak in the name of Science.
What then, we must ask, is the province of Science, and what are her methods?
"Science," always understanding by the term physical or experimental Science, deals with the universe so far as it is known to us through our senses. The universe known thus we call "Nature," and the whole stock in trade of Science is the examination and verification of natural phenomena, with such inferences therefrom as ascertained facts legitimately suggest. From careful and trustworthy observation she can learn what are called the "Laws of Nature," that is to say the manner in which the various elements and forces of the universe are found constantly to act, in given circumstances; she can, to some extent, discover the chain of causes and effects, or more properly of conditions and consequences, through which natural operations are carried on. She can even construct hypotheses as to what she cannot directly observe, namely, the nature of substances and forces; and such hypotheses are justified in proportion as they are found to tally with facts. If constantly thus justified, they are styled theories, and come to be practically assumed as established truths. But it must ever be remembered that Science can take no step in advance which is not based on fact, and that when facts are not forthcoming for its support an hypothesis or a theory has no scientific value.
Bearing this in mind, we will proceed to enquire what Science has to tell us regarding the origin of the world, and the manner in which it has come to be what it is.
5
Nineteenth Century, February, 1889. p. 173.
6
This term is now applied almost exclusively to physical science, or that whose province is the observation of phenomena and inferences directly deducible from them. To avoid confusion, this sense of the word "Science" will be here adopted: it is nevertheless objectionable inasmuch as it implies that – as Professor Huxley following Hume would have it – sound knowledge is restricted, outside the field of mathematics, to "experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence." But although all premisses or data of inference come to us first through the gates of sense, there is much, beyond the limits within which sensible experience is confined, to a knowledge of which inference can lead us, and of which we become certain before experience can verify what we have thus learnt. Thus a chipped flint or a fragment of pottery is universally recognized as evidencing the work of man: a single page of Virgil would suffice – apart from all other information – to prove its author to have been both a poet and a scholar: the shipwrecked mariner cast on an unknown shore argued soundly from the sight of a gibbet that he had reached a civilized land ruled by law. But more than this, Science herself proceeds on this principle to the recognition not only of forces, the character of which is known by previous experience, but of others concerning which she knows nothing at all, except through the very effects from which she argues. Thus, as all bodies left free are found to draw towards one another in a certain mode, it is concluded with absolute confidence that there is a force making them do so, although this is in itself utterly imperceptible, and is known only by the way in which bodies behave under what must be its influence. Yet, who questions the existence of Gravitation? In like manner, the phenomena of light force us to admit the existence of the Ether, as the medium through which its waves are transmitted. Yet, we are compelled to attribute to this medium qualities apparently so incompatible that, as the late Lord Salisbury said, Ether remains, "a half discovered entity." But little as we can realize its nature, we have no doubt that such a medium exists.
7
"Value of the Natural History Sciences" (Lay Sermons), p. 75.
8
Italics his.
