The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1907. SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 07, Issue 45, 7 November 1907, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1907. SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE

course, not science. It is unscientific romance. It is the pride and strength of true physical science that it ' demonstrates its teaching jby means of observations and experiments, which can be repeated and verified practically at will '. it deals only with- the aspects of material tarings ; its instruments are the rule, the balance, the chronometer, and such-like standards of measurement ; and its function is to .describe the .phenomena that ft witnesses, no£ to undertake an-explana-tion of th"c realities that lie. beneath phenomena. Science is not a philosophy. The investigator steps , beyond the frontier of exact science the moirent he, sets. foot.. in .the region of metaphysics. <He has', says . Dr. -Aveling, ' left his balance and measuring<-rod behind him, and finds himself in a new region of abstract- thought, for which, in nine cases out of ten, his very scientific training and habit of mind .have more or less unfitted him '.

Scientific theories Rave their proper use and purpose —which Is strictly provisional. But, to advance such" speculations— as many callow dabblers - do— as > the demonstrated facts of science is to prove traitor to • the principles of science ; it is a violation of every law and canon of exact science. •No ideas ', says- v Merz in his ' History of European Thought in the Ninteteenth Century ', ' lend themselves to such easy, but likewise to such shallow, generalisations as those of science. Once let out of the hand which uses them, in the strict and cautious manner by which alone they lead to valuable results, they are apt to work mischief '. Fontanelle, D'Alembert, (Jondorcet, and .. Uliderot were in their time (he adds) melancholy examples of t /the dangers of ' these hasty but brilliant generalisations ', which 'did no gpoa" to the truly scientific cause I. They, luave left a numerous progeny in our day. Yet the nrovement among the ablest scientific men of our time is- to get farther and farther away from the hard materialism of a generation ago. Even the Haeckelian school can only get away from the human soul by- endowing every atom with consciousness. Huxley, for instance, in his • Physical Basis of Life ', described as • utterly devoid of justification ' • the materialistic position that there is nothing in the world but matter, force, and necessity '. '■ The higher mysteries of being. ', says Lord Rayleigh, ' if penetrable at all by the' human intellect, require other than those of calculation and experiment '. These are matters that are ' beyond ■ the pale of science, though not beyond the grasp of reason. And back of all the data, of observation, back of all the phenomena of the material world, Lord Kelvin wfEh many other foremost scientists of our time, dis-* cerns the creative . and directive purpose., of a ' great Intelligent Being. And the devout ■ Pasteur— one of the greatest scientists of any age-who died - clasping a crucmx to <Bls breast, saw the finger of the Creator in every thing, from fiie stars of heaven to* the tiniest microbe under the eye of his microscope.

' No peb-We at my feet b.ut proves a sphere ; No chaffinch but implies the cherubim • The hum of lily-muffled, hee.but .finds ' Some coupling. music with., the spinning stars Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with. God'

' But ', adds the poet, ' only those , whq, see take off their shoes ; the rest sit. round, and,, eat, blackberries '.