Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/518

 that they were studying immutable creatures, there was a sense of restraint in the work, a feeling that investigation had a definite limit beyond which we could not go, and so there was little chance for speculation or theorizing on the nature of causes. When this restraint was suddenly and entirely removed by the theory of evolution the reaction was inevitable, and a strong tendency toward the other extreme set in, clearly shown by the number and variety of the theories that have been suggested and published to explain all kinds of natural phenomena. Scientists have been so entirely taken up with explaining how all the wonderful things which we find in the world about us have taken place; the doctrine of evolution has proved so completely satisfactory at every turn that there is great danger that the ultimate motive for scientific research will be completely lost to sight. Indeed, one may search a great majority of scientific works without finding a hint as to any higher motive than mere curiosity,—a curiosity differing greatly in quality and extent in differing writers, but very rarely that pure eagerness for “truth” which it sometimes professes to be. So long as the answer to the question How? is the all-important thing, and so long as that is considered the ultimate question, no proper conception of a nobler motive can be formed. But we must now consider if there is not still another question beyond the How? which is as far more important than that as that is beyond the question What? The extraordinary reverence which a certain school of scientists feel toward the question How? is clearly shown by the quotation in the earlier part of this article, and it will, no doubt, be considered impious by them that any one should presume to go beyond that question. At the same time one can not read that criticism without having forced upon him the belief that there is another and greater question to be considered, and that question may be briefly stated in the form of

It is not by any means a new question, and I claim no merit of originality in bringing it forward here; but since we have come to see the importance of the means to the end, we seem to have lost sight of the far greater importance of the causes of those means. That is, while we have been busy inquiring how things came to be so, we have either confused with that question, or forgotten altogether to ask, the why. Probably the first objection that will be raised to the consideration of this question will be the futility of seeking ultimate causes; and the limits of human knowledge will be emphasized to show the folly of going beyond the How? Now, it is no part of my purpose to consider the question whether there is an Absolute Unknowable; but I will merely suggest that when it was first proposed to consider how species came to be what they are, it was not only the theologians who raised a great