Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/521

 knowledge of the personality who is the cause of the phenomena. If, therefore, the phenomena are in point of time or space as compared with ourselves infinite, their cause must be infinite; and since it is admitted that cause is dependent on personality, we are justified in speaking of an Infinite Personal Being, and our knowledge of the cause of natural phenomena and the origin of natural law will be dependent on our knowledge of that Being whom we may reasonably call God. The dogmatic assertion, then, which we were examining does contain a clew to the solution of the problem. That “the Creator designed them so” is no answer to the question of the origin of species, is palpably evident, nor does it throw any light on the question of how things have come to be as they are; but it does give a clew as to why things are so, although, of course, it does not answer the query. If we examine the acts of any person we find that they throw light on his character, and if we become fully acquainted with the means which he has used, we become better acquainted with the character, and as we know that, we come to understand his motives. So we shall find it in the study of natural science. As we learn more and more of the facts of Nature, we shall become better acquainted with the means, and will understand then how things have been evolved; and as we solve these lesser problems we will become better and better fitted to understand why evolution has worked as it has, and to comprehend the character of God. This, then, is the true motive for scientific research, that we may know him who is the only true God, and by knowing his character and motives understand our relations to him. That the appreciation of this motive would have a marked effect on the spirit of scientific work is plainly evident, and, instead of the tone of shallow materialism so common to-day, we would have a religious reverence for truth as it is, without regard to possible effects on our pet theories—that truth which we shall some day know and which shall make us free. The doctrine of design certainly failed to explain the many phenomena of Nature, but that a re-examination of it, or even a temporary acceptance of it as explaining the why of those phenomena, means “the death of scientific investigation,” is the most arrant nonsense. The universe certainly is the “theater of Will,” otherwise there could be no universe; but it is also the theater of “forces the operation of which we can hope to understand,” and to deny the latter fact is as ridiculous as to ignore the former. Much discredit has been cast on religious teachers and workers because of ignorance and shallow reasoning, but there is great danger that in the closing days of this century scientific teachers and workers will bring discredit on themselves and their calling by an equally erroneous position, not toward religion only but toward Science herself. As soon, however, as one comprehends