THE MODERN MIND 355
no right to speak. Doubtless the final test must be prag matic. Science thrusts its questions into every sphere and seeks to apply its methods there, and in the end her right to be there can only be determined by the result. Does the ap plication of the scientific method in any given realm yield results that promote the fundamental human interests? If so, it is justified; otherwise, not.
In the second place, it has a tendency to depersonalize the whole universe of natural phenomena. Natural occurrences the law of which has not been discovered men are almost certain to refer to a non-human personal agency. Before the notion of natural law had been acquired, anything that took place and was not obviously accounted for by human agency was referred to non-human personal beings of one description or another. But when a law of nature has been discovered we are no longer disposed to refer the phenomena covered by it to the activity of a personal being. Now, science cultivates the habit of thinking that all change throughout the universe takes place according to law, and that the law is ascertainable by the human mind. The universality of natural law may be regarded as a fixed as sumption, or presupposition, of the modern mind; and so may the confidence that by scientific investigation men are destined to approximate more and more closely an adequate knowledge of the laws of nature. As the realm of dis covered natural law has broadened, the sphere of activity of those non-human personalities has contracted, until many men believe that the progress of natural science is destined to eliminate every trace of it. Most men think of the uni verse, especially the physical universe, as being operated by a vast system of laws. For most minds when the law of any phenomenon is found out, it is felt to be explained. That phenomenon is adequately accounted for. When any phenomenon is puzzling, the modern mind is convinced that there is a law that will explain it, and investigators set about the search for it. After a while some lucky man finds it. " Eureka." That fact is classed among the things explained,
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