Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/39

Rh boundaries of adjacent states are settled, but is like one of the great watersheds of nature, which no human arrangement can alter: it is like the "great divide" in the Rocky Mountains, one side of which means for every drop of rain that falls a passage to the Pacific, and the other side means a passage to the Atlantic. On a smaller scale there are similar edges on Snowdon and Helvellyn; you may stand upon them and throw two pebbles with the right hand and with the left, which will be miles apart before they come to rest.

For, in truth, the difference between the two territories, separated by our supposed scientific boundary, is greater than that which is expressed by the terms natura naturans and natura naturata The conception of a natura naturans might be merely that of a first cause, a logical beginning of nature, without any of those moral attributes which men with almost one consent associate with the name and conception of God. If the transgression of the legitimate boundaries of the field of physical science merely introduced the inquirer to metaphysical speculations, no harm would ensue, though possibly not much advantage. The condition and quality of mind which make a man a successful investigator of nature, either by the way of observation or by that of mathematical analysis, are seldom associated with those mental powers which enable a man to get beneath the surface of phenomena and speculate with any success as to the ground and underlying conditions of things. I do not say that a mind may not possess both kinds of power, but the combination is rare. Still, a man at the worst can only fail, and a brilliant observer or analyst may prove himself to be a poor philosopher, and that is the worst result that can come. But this is not in reality the result of crossing the scientific frontier. If on the one side is God and on the other nature, this means that on the one side you have a moral and religious region, and on the other a purely physical region; and the passage from one to the other is quite certain to be fraught with danger, not to say mischief.

Let me illustrate my meaning by reference to a passage in Ernst Haeckel's "History of Creation."

"Creation," he writes, "as the coming into existence of matter, does not concern us here at all. This process, if indeed it ever took place, is completely beyond human comprehension, and can therefore never become the subject of scientific inquiry. Natural science teaches