The difference flows naturally from the different modes
in which the two orders have been reached. For whereas the order on
which magic reckons is merely an extension, by false analogy, of the
order in which ideas present themselves to our minds, the order laid
down by science is derived from patient and exact observation of the
phenomena themselves. The abundance, the solidity, and the splendour
of the results already achieved by science are well fitted to
inspire us with a cheerful confidence in the soundness of its
method. Here at last, after groping about in the dark for countless
ages, man has hit upon a clue to the labyrinth, a golden key that
opens many locks in the treasury of nature. It is probably not too
much to say that the hope of progress--moral and intellectual as
well as material--in the future is bound up with the fortunes of
science, and that every obstacle placed in the way of scientific
discovery is a wrong to humanity.
Yet the history of thought should warn us against concluding that
because the scientific theory of the world is the best that has yet
been formulated, it is necessarily complete and final.
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