worthy of the human mind than the simple truths discovered by science. There is a fascination in mystery and there has ever been a school of intellects delighting to revel therein, and yet, in the grand aggregate, there is a spirit of sanity extant among mankind which loves the true and simple.
Often the eloquence of the dreamer has even subverted the sanity of science, and clear-headed, simple-minded scientific men have been willing to affirm that science deals with trivialities, and that only metaphysics deals with the profound and significant things of the universe. In a late great text-book on physics, which is a science of simple certitudes, it is affirmed:
"To us the question, What is matter?—What is, assuming it to have a real existence outside ourselves, the essential basis of the phenomena with which we may as physicists make ourselves acquainted?—appears absolutely insoluble. Even if we become perfectly and certainly acquainted with the intimate structure of what we call Matter, we would but have made a further step in the study of its properties; and as physicists we are forced to say that while somewhat has been learned as to the properties of Matter, its essential nature is quite unknown to us."
As though its properties did not constitute its essential nature.
So, under the spell of metaphysics, the physicist turns from his spectroscope to exclaim that all his researches may be dealing with phantasms.
Science deals with realities. These are bodies with their properties. All the facts embraced in this vast field of research are expressed in terms of
