Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/597

Rh Nor yet that the thoughts of the dead may not be of the greatest help to one who is studying the universe; he may get from them suggestions, theories which he may put to the test, and thus convert, in some cases, into real knowledge. But there is a third way in which he may treat them which makes books the very antithesis to reality, and the knowledge of books the knowledge of a spurious universe. This is when he contents himself with storing their contents in his mind, and does not attempt to put them to any test, whether from superstitious reverence or from an excessive pleasure in mere language. He may show wonderful ability in thus assimilating books, wonderful retentiveness, wonderful accuracy, wonderful acuteness; nay, if he clearly understands that he is only dealing with opinions, he may do good service in that department, for opinions need collecting and classifying as much as botanical specimens. But one often sees such collectors mistaking opinions for truths, and depending for their views of the universe entirely upon these opinions, which they accept implicitly without testing them. Such men may be said to study, but not to study the universe.

There are other classes of men of whom much the same may be said. The scientific school, when they recommend the study of Nature, do not mean, for example, the mere collecting of facts, however authentic. Nature with them is not a heap of phenomena, but laws discerned in phenomena, and by a knowledge of Nature they mean a just conception of laws much more than an ample store of information about phenomena. Again, in an age like the present, when methods of inquiry have been laid down and tested by large experience, they do not dignify with the name of the study of Nature any investigation, however earnest or fresh, of the facts of the world, which does not conform to these methods, or show reason for not doing so.

Knowledge of Nature understood in this sense, and obtained in this way, is what we are now told is alone valuable—what human happiness depends on. And assuredly it deserves to be called in the strictest sense theology. If God be the Ruler of the world, as the orthodox theology teaches, the laws of Nature are the laws by which he rules it. If you prefer the pantheistic view, they are the very manifestations of the Divine Nature. In any case the knowledge of Nature, if only it be properly sifted from the corrupting mixture of mere opinion, is the knowledge of God. That there may be another and deeper knowledge of God beyond it does not affect this fact.

But is theology a mere synonym for science? If so, the scientific man may fairly say: "I need not concern myself with it; I have already a name for my pursuit which satisfies me; it does not interest me to hear that there is another name which also is appropriate." Is there no special department of science which may be called theological, to distinguish it from the other departments? It is this which so many scientific men now deny. They say there is certainly such a special