New-York tribune., 1915-12-18

as he says, we cannot give up: "Sir, |
know that ! am, and there's an end
of it,"
More than once or twice, but never
anonymously, that exquisite sense of
humor which has always been one of
Mr.. Balfour's charms is disclosed in
the course of these abstruse metaphysi-
cal dsquisitions. Thus he speculates
upon what would have happened, and
elaborately imagines what 1t would
have been if the conservation of en-
ergy two generations ago had been
theological dogma instead of a scien-
tfc guess. Some materialist or rather
positivist philosophers would have con-
demned it as having arisen from some
fanciful medieval deductions from the
way in which God was supposed 20
have created the world, and as being
based not upon proved facts, but upon
theological opinions. "If sound reason
and intellectual integrity require us to
follow the lead of observation and eY-
pertinent. with no antecedent prefer
ence for one class of conclusions rather
than another, then no doubt Joule and
a long line of distinguished predeces-
sors were the spoiled children of fort
une. They made their discoveries in
advance of their evidence and in spite
of their methods. If they turned out
TO be right, what can we do but criti-
else their credulity and wonder at their
luck, unless, indeed, their luck be
form of inspiration?" And again, re-
ferring 10 the theory which in the
hands chiefly of Boyle az the end of the
seventeenth century initiated modern
chemistry, Mr.. Balfour incidentally OBJ
serves that a company promoter who
should issue prospectus based On no
better evidence than Boyle could ad-
vance for this tremendous theory would
certainly be in peril of the law! Yet
Boyle was right, and his conjecture re-
mains the cornerstone Of modern chem
ical research.
The moral is obvious. II material
science thus bases its most imposing
structures upon conjecture and hypoth-
esis it certainly must moderate the
furor with which it assails and con-
demns religion for basing its systems
upon what Mr. Baifour fel,citously calls
instructive faith and inevitable beliefs.
There could be no stronger plea for
mutual tolerance between science and
religion nor any stronger condemna-
tion of bigoted dogmstism on either
side. Those .heologians who have
looked askant upon the author of the
DtleNCe Ol IHliOSopAlS bpNDN aHN
the Foundations of Belief" as an
agnostic and atheist viii do we'll to
mark, read and inwardly digest these
fascinating lectures; from which they
will learn that, far as he may be re-
moved from conventional orthodoxy,
Mr.. Balfour is the very antithesis OF
agnostic and atheist. II Mr. Balfour
began his philosophy with doubt. and
with a defence of doubt, so, We must
remember, did Descartes, against
whom scarcely even the most orthodox
will rebel. And while the two phllos-
ophers DO not by any means always
agree, they reach the same conclusion,
though their final approaches to 1t are
made from exactly opposite sides.
"Descartes rests the belief in science
on the belief in God. l." says Mr.
Balfour, rest the belief in God on the
belief in science" Even the ultra
orthodox might well regard that atti-
tude with much complaceney, seeing
that it compels science to recognize
that his belief in God rests upon what
it esteems to be the most secure OF
all foundations.