Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/457

Rh by faith; that is, we believe in the probabilities sufficiently to act upon them.

So far from any conflict being between science and religion, their bases are the same, their modes are similar, and their ends are identical, viz., what all life seems to be, that is, a discipline of faith.

It is not proper to despise knowledge, however gained: whether from the exercise of the logical understanding, or from consciousness, or from faith; and these are the three sources of knowledge. That which has been most undervalued is the chief of the three; that is, faith.

We believe before we acquire the habit of studying and analyzing our consciousness. We believe before we learn how to conduct the processes of our logical understanding.

We can have much knowledge by our faith without notice of our consciousness, and without exertion of our reasoning faculties; but we can have no knowledge without faith. We can learn nothing from our examination of any consciousness without faith in some principle of observation, comparison, and memory. We can acquire no knowledge by our logical understanding without faith in the laws of mental operations.

This last statement, if true, places all science on the same basis with religion. Although so familiar to many minds, we may take time to show that it is true.

For proof let us go to a science which is supposed to demonstrate all its propositions, and examine a student in geometry. We will not call him out on the immortal 47: I of Euclid. We can learn all we need from a bright boy who has been studying Euclid a week. The following may represent our colloquy:

Q. Do you know how many right angles may be made by one straight line upon one side of another straight line?

A. Yes; two, and only two. Innumerable angles may be made by two straight lines so meeting, but the sum of all the possible angles will be two right angles.

Q. You say you know that. How do you know that you know it?

A. Because I can prove it. A man knows every proposition which he can demonstrate.

Q. Please prove it to me.

The student draws the well-known diagrams. If he follows Euclid, he begins with an argument like this:

A. There are obviously two angles made when a straight line stands on another straight line.

Q. My eyes show me that.

In answer he gives us the well-known demonstration of Euclid, to show that the sum of the two angles is equal to two right angles; and, when he has finished and reached the Q. E. D., he and his examiners know that this proposition is true, because he has proved it.