ABSTRACT
The latter seems to be preferred by science as the final result of scientific knowledge: the object of science is to demonstrate, not why, but that things happen in a certain way; and it is admitted, or rather insisted upon, e.g. by J. S. Mill, that if scientific knowledge were carried to its utmost con ceivable or inconceivable perfection, the question why anything should happen or does happen would remain as great a mystery as ever, and must remain so, for the simple reason that it is a question which
science does not even put, much less attempt to answer. Nevertheless, it is said, science does prove what she undertakes to show, viz. that things do happen in certain ways, which ways when formulated appear as laws of science. That, however, is not strictly the case if science, in order to prove her conclusions, has to postulate that each and every state of things is the outcome of some antecedent necessity. Ultimately the postulate proves untrue; for there can have been no necessity antecedent to the initial arrangement of things. And if the postulate be untrue, the conclusions based on it cannot be accepted as certain. If we cannot tell whether it be true or not, neither can we tell whether science be true or not. If it is unin telligible, no wonder that things, as explained by it, are mysterious.
