Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/343

Rh due consideration we shall have to admit, I think, that it does not." And he then proceeds to argue that the proposition is doubtful, or indeed untrue, because I hold that certain elements of it—matter, space, time and force—are, when fundamentally considered, incomprehensible. Now this, which at first sight appears to be simply a vicarious skepticism, proves, on inquiry, to be a skepticism of Mr. Balfour himself. For since, as shown on p. 284, he holds the same view that I do respecting these "ultimate scientific ideas" what he calls my principles are, in this region, his principles. So that, making the substitution, the sentence should run:—"But then, on my principles, does the sun give light?" The statement that the sun gives light is in his view not a certainty but the contrary.

Turn now to Mr. Balfour's converse attitude. As a result of economies of belief, like the foregoing, he is able to regard as necessary certain assumptions which seem to me to have no warrant. The following passages from p. 302 supply an example:—

"The ordered system of phenomena asks for a cause; our knowledge of that system is inexplicable unless we assume for it a rational Author. . ..

"We can not, for example, form, I will not say any adequate, but even any tolerable, idea of the mode in which God is related to, and acts on, the world of phenomena. That He created it, that He sustains it, we are driven to believe. How He created it, how He sustains it, it is impossible for us to imagine."

Here, then, is implied the belief, apparently regarded as unquestionable, that while one ultimate difficulty can not be allowed to remain without solution, another may be allowed so to remain. But why, if it must continue "impossible for us to imagine" the mode of operation of the cause behind "the ordered system of phenomena," may it not continue "impossible for us to imagine" the nature of that cause? If we are obliged to assume the cause to be "a rational Author," since otherwise our knowledge of "the ordered system of phenomena is inexplicable," why must we not assume a certain mode of action by which "He created" and "sustains" "the ordered system of phenomena," since otherwise the creation and sustentation of it are inexplicable? To me it seems an indefensible belief that while for one part of the Mystery of Things we must assign an explanation, all other parts may be left without explanation. If the constitution of matter defies all attempts to understand it, if it is impossible to understand in what way feeling is connected with nervous change, if wherever we analyze our knowledge to the bottom we come down to unanalyzable components which elude the grasp of thought, what ground is there for the belief that of one part of the mystery, and that the deepest part, we must and can reach an explanation? Surely there is a strange incongruity in holding that we