If I am guilty, I do penance beforehand, and only hope
that I may thereby deter others from committing the like fault. And I
venture on this personal observation by way of showing that I have no
wish to bear hardly on the preacher for falling into an error for
which he might find good precedents. But it is one of those errors
which, in the case of a person engaged in scientific pursuits, do
little harm, because it is corrected as soon as its consequences
become obvious; while those who know physical science only by name
are, as has been seen, easily led to build a mighty fabric of
unrealities on this fundamental fallacy. In fact, the habitual use of
the word "law," in the sense of an active thing, is almost a mark of
pseudo-science; it characterises the writings of those who have
appropriated the forms of science without knowing anything of its
substance.
There are two classes of these people: those who are ready to believe
in any miracle so long as it is guaranteed by ecclesiastical
authority; and those who are ready to believe in any miracle so long
as it has some different guarantee. The believers in what are
ordinarily called miracles--those who accept the miraculous narratives
which they are taught to think are essential elements of religious
doctrine--are in the one category; the spirit-rappers, table-turners,
and all the other devotees of the occult sciences of our day are in
the other: and, if they disagree in most things they agree in this,
namely, that they ascribe to science a dictum that is not scientific;
and that they endeavour to upset the dictum thus foisted on science by
a realistic argument which is equally unscientific.
Pages:
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110