Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/666

646 death. The continued existence of animals and men is based on the adequacy of their sensations and the veracity of their actions. The existence of any creature is, in general, proof of the sanity of its ancestry, or at least of the sanity of those who controlled the actions of its ancestors.

This veracity is gauged by the degree of coincidence of subjective impressions and objective truth. Whoever makes a fool's paradise or a fool's hell of the world about him is not allowed to live in it. This fact in all its bearings must stand as a proof that the universe is outside of man and not within him. In this objective universe which lies outside ourselves we find "the ceaseless flow of force and the rational intelligence that pervades it." No part of it can be fully understood by us, but in it we find no chance movement, "no variableness nor shadow of turning." That such a universe exists seems to demand some intelligence capable of understanding it, of stating its properties in terms of absolute truth as distinguished from those of human experience. Only an Infinite Being can be conceived as doing this, hence such knowledge must enter into our conception of the Infinite Being, whatever may be our theology in other respects. For to know an object or phenomenon in its fullness, "all in all," "we should know what God is and man is."

It is therefore no reproach to human science that it deals with human relations, not with absolute truths. "The ultimate truths of science," Dr. Schurman has said, "rest on the same basis as the ultimate truths of philosophy"—that is, on a basis that transcends human experience. This is true, for science has no "ultimate truths." There are none known to man. "The perfect truth," says Lessing, "is but for Thee alone." With ultimate truths human philosophy tries in some fashion to deal. To look at the universe in some degree through the eyes of God is the aim of philosophy. In its aim it is most noble. Its efforts are a source of strength in the conduct of human life. But its conclusions are not truth. They range from the puerile to the incomprehensible, and only science—that is, "common sense"—can distinguish the two. For this reason just in proportion as philosophy is successful it is unfit as a basis of human action. Human knowledge and action have limitations. The chief of these is that whatever can not be stated in terms of human experience is unintelligible to man. Whatever can not be thought can not be lived.

Philosophy has its recognized methods of procedure. These are laid down in the mechanism of the human brain itself. Science has found these methods untrustworthy as a means of reaching objective truth. The final test of scientific truth is this: Can we make it work? Can we trust our life to it? This test the