That we know little about such possibilities as yet, proves nothing;—for mark how easy it would have been to be ignorant of the existence of all the visible worlds and myriad modes of being in space. Not until the business of the day is over, and our great star has eclipsed itself behind the earth, not until the serener period of night, does the grandeur of the material universe force itself upon our attention. And, even then, let there be but a slight permanent thickening of our atmosphere, and we should have had no revelation of any world other than our own. Under those conditions—so barely escaped from—how wretchedly meagre and limited would have been our conception of the Universe! Aye, and, unless we foolishly imagine that our circumstances are such as to have already given us a clue to every kind of possible existence, I venture to say that "wretchedly meagre and limited" must be a true description of our conception of the Universe, even now,—even of the conception of those who have permitted themselves, with least hesitation, to follow whithersoever facts lead.
If there be any group of scientific or historical or literary students who advocate what they think to be a sensible, but what I regard as a purblind, view of existence, based upon already systematised knowledge and on unfounded and restricting speculation as to probable boundaries and limitations of existence,—if such students take their own horizon to be the measure of all things,—the fact is to be deplored. Such workers, however admirable their industry and detailed achievements, represent a school of thought against the fruits of which we of the Allied Nations are in arms.
Nevertheless speculation of this illegitimate and negative kind is not unknown among us. It originates partly in admiration for the successful labours of a bygone generation in clearing away a quantity of clinging parasitic growth which was obscuring the fair fabric of ascertained truth, and partly in an innate iconoclastic enthusiasm.
The success which has attended Darwinian and other hypotheses has had a tendency to lead men—not indeed men of Darwinian calibre, but smaller and less conscientious men—in science as well as in history and theology, to an over-eager confidence in probable conjecture and inadequate attention to facts of experience. It has even been said—I quote from a writer in the volume Darwin and Modern Science, published in connexion with a Darwin jubilee celebration at Cambridge—that "the age of materialism was the least matter-of-fact age conceivable, and the age of science the age which showed least of the patient temper of enquiry." I would not go so far as this myself, the statement savours of exaggeration, but there is a regrettable tendency in surviving materialistic quarters for combatants to entrench themselves in dogma and preconceived opinion, to regard these vulnerable shelters as sufficient protection against observed and recorded facts, and even to employ them as strongholds from which alien observation-posts can be shattered and overthrown.
CHAPTER V
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
"How often have men thus feared that Nature's wonders would be degraded by being closelier looked into! How often, again, have they learnt that the truth was higher than their imagination; and that it is man's work, but never Nature's, which to be magnificent must remain unknown!"—F. W. H. M., Introduction to Phantasms of the Living
OUR actual experience is strangely limited. We cannot be actually conscious of more than a single instant of time. The momentary flash which we call the present, the visual image of which can be made permanent by the snap of a camera, is all of the external world that we directly apprehended. But our real existence embraces far more than that. The present, alone and isolated, would be meaningless to us; we look before and after. Our memories are thronged with the past; our anticipations range over the future; and it is in the past and the future that we really live. It is so even with the higher animals: they too order their lives by memory and anticipation. It is under the influence of the future that the animal world performs even the most trivial conscious acts. We eat, we rest, we work, all with an eye to the immediate future. The present moment is illuminated and made significant, is controlled and dominated, by experience of the past and by expectation of the future. Without any idea of the future our existence would be purely mechanical and meaningless: with too little eye to the future—a mere living from hand to mouth—it becomes monotonous and dull.
Hence it is right that humanity, transcending merely animal scope, should seek to answer questions concerning its origin and destiny, and should regard with intense interest every clue to the problems of 'whence' and 'whither.'