SCIENCE IN ITS PLACE
MODERN science is suffused with the odour of law. Its aim is primarily to bring phenomena under laws. Some-
times phenomena prove stubborn ; then the law is extended to embrace this stubbornness, just as a bad-tempered nurse, perceiving that she has scolded a child beyond endurance, gives him a kiss to preserve her sovereignty.
The tidiness of modern science has provided u_t with bound- less facilities—inventions, medicines, mechanical comforts—for which we are grateful. But there was, at one time, a danger that the cult of law would do us more harm than good, and that it might squeeze out, with its inhuman explanations, all the joy of life. That danger is passing, but there may now be a reaction as disastrous. Science must retreat, but only to build impregnable fortifications on a well-chosen spot. Materialism has failed. Universal determinism—the in- finite cydes of ruthless cause and effect determining every- thing that ever was or will be—has, in the end, been found to be meaningless. For how could we be aware of solids if we were not aware of liquids and gases, and how could we give
content to law if we did not give meaning to what was not law ? We could not realize law to be such if there were nothing else with which to contrast it. And so something other than law is necessary to the very meaning of law.
This is the stronghold which science and its laws should
fortify so that if the spinsters of California have their way with the world in the flurry of reaction, declaring that there is only mind and the mysticism of the elan vital, science can thunder that respect must be paid to her impersonal laws to give meaning by contrast to such exotic fancies. Science must be contented with a limited kingdom. If she persists in her attempt to conquer the whole world, she will have no defences against the seances of San Francisco and the bare
knees of the German forests.
The scientist would be more ready for this retreat if he
studied more the history of his subject. He would find how new a thing is the tidy, scientific spirit with its impartial segregations into compartments. He would be surprised to find how little emphasis has been laid by other ages on the workings of inhuman, mechanistic forces in Nature. Even the Greeks, with all their usual moderation mingled with unrestraint, were curious about the properties of iron, but ever associated iron with Mars. " To Thales is credited the theory that the primal matter from which *originated everything mechanical is water. He is also said to have declared that everything is full of divinities.- The lodestone has a soul because it attracts iron."
Alchemy follows. The development of the modern scientific outlook in the first years of the nineteenth century was very laborious, as a study of the Phlogiston controversy will show. The triumph of Lavoisier, who explained away the mystery of oxidation, was difficult for his contemporaries, such as Priestley, to accept, not so much because of the novelty of the explanation, as because Lavoisier had destroyed the mystery. The significance of Priestley as a key to historical continuity has not yet been realized. T. E. Thorpe wrote of him, " The contrast between Priestley the social, political and theological reformer, always in advance of his times, receptive, fearless and insistent, and Priestley the man of science, timorous and halting when he might well be bold, conservative and orthodox when almost every other worker was heterodox and progressive, is most striking."
Modern science has triumphed over alchemy, but if it will admit its limitations it can give the romanticism which fired alchemy a surer foundation than ever before.
In The Story of Early Chemistry the late Professor Stillman has made no attempt to direct his massive learning. The volume is heavy with facts and original documents, but without one inspired generalization. As a book of reference for students it will, no doubt, be invaluable.
Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science is even more learned and even more uninspired. But Professor Haskins is to be congratulated on his assiduity in bringing to the fore manuscripts which should provide material for a more accomplished historian. Particularly important is the light that the Professor sheds on the activities of Adelard of Bath, who introduced Aristotle into England from Moorish sources in the eleventh century. Translations of original Greek and Syrian authorities in the same century discovered by Professor Haskins enhance our understanding of the twelfth century renaissance, perhaps the most thrilling era in history. Professor Haskins can also give us new information about that remarkable personage Frederick II., and it is delightful to learn that in November, 1281, Frederick came to Ravenna " with many animals unknown to Italy : elephants, drome- daries, camels, panthers, gerfalcons, lions, leopards, white
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