第35章

Take an instance. Of old the Sun was regarded as the chariot of a god, drawnby horses. How far the idea thus grossly expressed was idealized, we neednot inquire. It suffices to remark that this accounting for the apparentmotion of the Sun by an agency like certain visible terrestrial agencies,reduced a daily wonder to the level of the commonest intellect. When, manycenturies after, Copernicus having enunciated the heliocentric theory ofthe solar system, Kepler discovered that the orbits of the planets are ellipses,and that the planets describe equal areas in equal times, he concluded thatin each of them there must exist a spirit to guide its movements. Here wesee that with the progress of Science, there had disappeared the idea ofa gross mechanical traction, such as was first assigned in the case of theSun; but that while for the celestial motions there was substituted a less-easilyconceivable force, it was still thought needful to assume personal agentsas causes of the regular irregularity of the motions. When, finally it wasproved that these planetary revolutions with all their variations and disturbances,conform to one universal law -- when the presiding spirits which Kepler conceivedwere set aside, and the force of gravitation put in their places; the changewas really the abolition of an imaginable agency, and the substitution ofan unimaginable one. For though the law of gravitation is within our mentalgrasp, it is impossible to realize in thought the force of gravitation. Newtonhimself confessed the force of gravitation to be incomprehensible withoutthe intermediation of an ether; and, as we have already seen, (§18),the assumption of an ether does not help us. Thus it is with Science in general.

Its progress in grouping particular relations of phenomena under laws, andthese special laws under laws more and more general, is of necessity a progressto causes more and more abstract. And causes more and more abstract, areof necessity causes less and less conceivable; since the formation of anabstract conception involves the dropping of certain concrete elements ofthought. Hence the most abstract conception, to which Science is slowly approaching,is one that merges into the inconceivable or unthinkable, by the droppingof all concrete elements of thought. And so is justified the assertion thatthe beliefs which Science has forced upon Religion, have been intrinsicallymore religious than those which they supplanted.

Science, however, like Religion, has but very incompletely fulfilled itsoffice. As Religion has fallen short of its function in so far as it hasbeen irreligious; so has Science fallen short of its function in so far asit has been unscientific. Let us note the several parallelisms. In its earlierstages Science, while it began to teach the constant relations of phenomena,and thus discredited the belief in separate personalities as the causes ofthem, itself substituted the belief in casual agencies which, if not personal,were yet concrete. When certain facts were said to show "Nature's abhorrenceof a vacuum," when the properties of gold were explained as due to someentity called "aureity," and when the phenomena of life were attributedto "a vital principle;" there was set up a mode of interpretingthe facts which, while antagonistic to the religious mode, because assigningother agencies, was also unscientific, because it assumed a knowledge ofthat about which nothing was known. Having abandoned these metaphysical agencies-- having seen that they are not independent existences, but merely specialcombinations of general causes, Science has more recently ascribed extensivegroups of phenomena to electricity, chemical affinity, and other like generalpowers. But in speaking of these as ultimate and independent entities, Sciencehas preserved substantially the same attitude as before. Accounting thusfor all phenomena, it has not only maintained its seeming antagonism to Religion,by alleging agencies of a radically unlike kind; but, in so far as it hastacitly implied its comprehension of these agencies, it has continued unscientific.

At the present time, however, the most advanced men of science are abandoningthese later conceptions, as their predecessors abandoned the earlier ones.

Magnetism, heat, light, etc., which were early in the century spoken of asso many distinct imponderables, physicists now regard as different modesof manifestation of some one universal force; and in so regarding them areceasing to think of this force as comprehensible. In each phase of its progress,Science has thus stopped short with superficial solutions -- has unscientificallyneglected to ask what were the natures of the agents it familiarly invoked.

Though in each succeeding phase it has gone a little deeper, and merged itssupposed agents in more general and abstract ones, it has still, as before,rested content with these aS if they were ascertained realities. And this,which has all along been an unscientific characteristic of Science, has allalong been a part-cause of its conflict with Religion. §30. Thus from the outset the faults of both Religion and Sciencehave been the faults of imperfect development. Originally a mere rudiment,each has been growing more complete; the vice of each has in all times beenits incompleteness; the disagreements between them have been consequencesof their incompleteness; and as they reach their final forms they come intoharmony.