us places, to the fulness of literature and to the
thoughtful speech of all kindred nations, nor are they demeaned with
sordid, shop-keeper utility. This was plainly in the mind of the Poet
Laureate, who speaking at the meeting I have referred to, said well
that "a merely utilitarian science can never win the spiritual respect
of mankind." The main objection that the humanists make to the
introduction of natural science as a necessary subject of education,
is, he declared, that science is not spiritual, that it does not work
in the sphere of ideas. He went on very properly to show how perverse
is such a representation of science, but, alas, in further
recommendation of science as a safe subject of instruction he added
that the antagonism of science to religion is ended, and that the
contest had been a passing phase. Reading this we may wonder whether
we are in fairness entitled to Dr Bridges's approval. "Tastes sweet
the water with such specks of earth?" Since he spoke of the
"unscientific attitude" of Professor Huxley as a thing of the past,
candour obliges us to insist emphatically that the struggle continues
and must perpetually be renewed. Huxley was opposing the teaching of
science to that of revelation. In these days the ground has shifted,
and supernatural teachings make preferably their defence by an appeal
to intuition and other obscure phenomena which can be trusted to defy
investigation. Against all such apocryphal glosses of evidential truth
science protests with equal vehemence, and were Huxley here he would
treat Bergson and his allies with the same scorn and contumely that he
meted out to the Bishop of Oxford on the notorious occasion to which
Dr Bridges made reference. As well might we decorate our writings with
Plantin title-pages, showing the author embraced by angels and
inspiring muses, as recommend ourselves in these disguises.

Agnosticism is the very life and mainspring of science. Not merely as
to the supernatural but as to the natural world must science believe
nothing save under compulsion. Little of value has a man got from
science who has not learned to be slow of faith. Those early lessons
in the study of the natural world will be the best which most frankly
declare our ignorance, exciting the mind to attack the unknown by
showing how soon the frontier of knowledge is reached. "We don't know"
should be ever in the mouth of the teacher, followed sometimes by "we
may find out yet." Not merely