There is nothing unscientific in
the idea that, beyond the lines of force felt by the senses, the
universe may be -- as it has always been -- either a
supersensuous chaos or a divine unity, which irresistibly
attracts, and is either life or death to penetrate. Thus far,
religion, philosophy, and science seem to go hand in hand. The
schools begin their vital battle only there. In the earlier
stages of progress, the forces to be assimilated were simple and
easy to absorb, but, as the mind of man enlarged its range, it
enlarged the field of complexity, and must continue to do so,
even into chaos, until the reservoirs of sensuous or
supersensuous energies are exhausted, or cease to affect him, or
until he succumbs to their excess.
For past history, this way of grouping its sequences may answer
for a chart of relations, although any serious student would need
to invent another, to compare or correct its errors; but past
history is only a value of relation to the future, and this value
is wholly one of convenience, which can be tested only by
experiment. Any law of movement must include, to make it a
convenience, some mechanical formula of acceleration.
CHAPTER XXXIV
A LAW OF ACCELERATION (1904)
IMAGES are not arguments, rarely even lead to proof, but the
mind craves them, and, of late more than ever, the keenest
experimenters find twenty images better than one, especially if
contradictory; since the human mind has already learned to deal
in contradictions.
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