More Science From an Easy Chair Part 14

It seems still to be necessary to insist that it is not reasonable to a.s.sume as an indisputable fact that man can arrive at an "explanation"

of existence and the nature of things. This a.s.sumption has been made in the past, and, by a well-known trick of advocacy, it has been argued that since science fails to "explain" these things, the old prehistoric fancies as to spirits--even though they "explain" nothing and have themselves to be "explained"--hold the field and must be accepted as true. There is an alternative, and that is to admit our ignorance. No man has ever seen or knows what is on the other side of the moon, that which does not face our earth. There are few amongst us who, in this admitted and complete state of ignorance, would persist in declaring that we must accept as true the suppositions of ancient races of men as to the existence there of men-like creatures, or would be deluded by the argument that since we do not know what is there the suppositions in question must be accepted as true. We cannot, as a matter of observation, a.s.sert that these supposed beings are not there, but we can find no reason to make it appear even probable, nor any means of proving by experiment, that they are. We refuse to entertain such suppositions.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: This subject is discussed and some account of the chemical nature of protoplasm given in my book, "Science from an Easy Chair" (Methuen, 1910), which consists of a first series of papers similar to those which are collected in the present volume as a "Second Series." The chapters in the earlier volume to which I wish to direct the reader's attention are those ent.i.tled "The Universal Structure of Living Things," "Protoplasm, Life and Death," "Chemistry and Protoplasm," "The Simplest Living Things."]