Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/668

648 knows nothing as yet of the identity of these elements. In a general way Science is finding out that the processes of Nature are more complex than man supposed, while the elements on which these processes rest, matter and force, are more simple. How far can this generalization go? To every test human experience has devised each chemical element remains the same, its atoms unchangeable as well as indestructible. Therefore, to speak of them as forms of one substance is to go beyond knowledge. Science does not teach this. But to philosophy this offers no difficulty. It is still plausible to suppose that by some combination of primitive units these variant atoms are formed. Such an idea would have logical continuity, and, as we are becoming used to the notions of primal unity, we find such an idea satisfying to our consciousness. If this is true, somewhere, somehow, lead will be resolved into its primal elements, and these elements may be united in the form of gold. Then will the dream of the alchemist become fact. But Science must make this objection: "Not until then." Such transmutation is as yet no part of knowledge. We certainly do not know that lead can be changed into that which is transmutable into gold. We do not know it, I say; but may we believe it? Is the foundation of belief less secure than that of knowledge? Can we trust Philosophy to tell us what to believe while we must look to Science to tell us what we know?

This brings us to the question of definitions. If knowledge and belief are of like rank, both must rest on science, and the results of philosophy must come to science only as hints or suggestions as to lines of research.

If knowledge implies stability and belief does not, the relation of the two is also clear. In that case belief would be a word of light meaning, expressive of whim or of the balance of opinion. Such weight as it has would be drawn from its association with prejudice. Belief would then be the pretense of knowledge as compared with knowledge itself. Among its paths life can not march with courage and effectiveness. It is not for such beliefs as this that the martyrs have lived or died. Their inspiration was the positive belief of science or the negative belief of the falsity of the ideas that tyranny or superstition had forced upon them.

To avoid a discussion foreign to my purpose, I wish, if possible, to separate the word belief—as used in this paper—from the word religion. The essence of belief is the categorical statement of propositions. These may be built into a creed, which word is the Latin synonym of belief.

Religion implies rather a condition of the mind and heart—an attitude, not a formula. Faith, hope, charity do not rest on logic