g
for the truth. It has often been said that atheism, in that negative
aspect, places a question mark upon our problems. However, while a
question mark may indicate a negative value, it may also prove to be a
mental provocative. A period placed at the end of a problem denotes that
it has been definitely solved. In connection with the origin of the
universe, no period can be placed at the end of that problem, and since
we are awaiting the solution, it is much more to the interest of further
advances to place the question mark there, than to consider the matter
solved. Surely, sufficient instances have been enumerated in this
discussion to show the stultification and retardation that ensues when
an institution maintains an insistence that a problem be held to
conform in any of its explanatory aspects to a preconceived infallible
statement, or considers a problem not to exist, or closes its eyes to
the inconsistencies in an explanation which is being maintained by
mental persuasion and force. When the Bible was considered as containing
the answer to all our problems we have seen what the result was. If
atheism places a question mark upon the problem of the universe, it does
so in a constructive manner; for that mark points to the direction in
which a logical solution may be possible. Such is the mental attitude of
the scientist. He places an interrogation point upon his problems and
that mark is the impetus, the mental stimulus, that leads him on to take
infinite pains in his labors and, as time passes, each question mark is
replaced by knowledge; it is knowledge and knowledge alone, reason not
faith, that furnishes the period.

It was Haeckel who asserted that, "The most dangerous of the three great
enemies of reason and knowledge is not malice, but ignorance, or
perhaps, indolence." The question mark as applied to a problem that is
recognizably not solved is a signpost to the knowledge that time must
bring. The spurious period placed at the end of a problem is the death
warrant for that problem and there it must lie devitalized by ignorance
and indolence.

It has often been affirmed that what we see in this universe is
phenomena, and all explanations but interpret the manifestations of
these phenomena. What is in back of and beyond these phenomena may never
be known, and if it be known, would be of no further use to us. It is
equally as true that if we but see phenomena and our mental capacities
deny us a conception of