" Occasionally we hear naturalists speak in this way. We only wish
for facts! Then our thoughts, our feelings, our conscience are not
facts! The man who will give the closest observation to the steps of a
fly, or to a caterpillar's method of crawling, has not a moment's
attention to give to the impulses of the heart, to the rules of duty, to
the struggles of the will; and when addressed on the subject of these
realities of the soul, the most certain of all realities, he will reply:
"That is no business of mine, I want nothing but facts." Let us pass
from this aberration, and listen for a moment to other objectors.
We do not deny, it is often said, the reality of our feelings. Man
desires happiness, and seeks it in religious belief; but this is an
order of things which science cannot take account of. Science has only
truth for its object, and owes its own existence wholly to the reason.
If it happens to science to give pain to the heart or to the conscience,
no conclusion can thence be drawn against the certainty of its results.
"There is no commoner, and at the same time faultier, way of reasoning,
than that of objecting to a philosophical hypothesis the injury it may
do to morals and to religion. When an opinion leads to absurdity, it is
certainly false; but it is not certain that it is false because it
entails dangerous consequences.
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