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And that this metaphysical system of teleology does rest on such a basis is indisputable; for while it accepts the most ultimate truths of which science can ever be cognisant viz., the persistence of force and the consequently necessary genesis of natural law, it nevertheless maintains that the necessity of regarding Mind as the ultimate cause of things is not on this account removed; and, therefore, that if science now requires the operation of a Supreme Mind to be posited in a super-scientific sphere, then in a super-scientific sphere it ought to be posited.
For we are here in possession, not merely of a vague and general impression that the Ultimate is super-scientific, and so beyond the range of legitimate prediction; but we are also in possession of a logical formula whereby at once to vindicate the rationality of our opinion, and to measure the precise degree of its technical value.
Now the farther we travel into this region of unrealisable ideas, the less trustworthy is the report that we are able to bring back. The method is in a sense scientific; but when even scientific method is projected into a region of really super-scientific possibility, it ceases to have that character of undoubted certainty which it enjoys when dealing with verifiable subjects of inquiry.
And, it may be urged, we do find such an unexplained residuum in the correlation of general laws in the production of cosmic harmony. It signifies nothing, the argument may run, that we are unable to conceive the methods whereby the supposed Mind operates in producing cosmic harmony; nor does it signify that its operation must now be relegated to a super-scientific province.
We must finally appeal to philosophy; we must have recourse to ideal values to a non-scientific or super-scientific principle. We cannot live intellectually or emotionally upon science alone.
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