this moment of time, but we cannot
even think of a cessation of that process.

Should we ask, "Why does this process exist?" there is no answer.
Nature does not reply; an awful silence meets our inquiry. The
reproach is often urged against science--the knowledge of the order of
nature--that it does not tell us "why we are here." Man inevitably
desires to know why he is here; but "science," as that word is now
understood, does not profess or even seek to answer that question,
although the false hope has been raised in ignorant minds, sometimes
by knavery, sometimes by honest delusion, that it could do so. By
knowledge of nature mankind can escape much suffering and gain the
highest happiness, but that is all that we can hope for from it. We
shall never satisfy our curiosity; we shall never know in the same way
as we know the order of nature, why--to what end, for what
purpose--that order and not another order exists.

It is very generally supposed that it is the business and profession
of science "to explain" things--that is to say, to show how this or
that must and does come about in consequence of the operation of the
great general properties of matter, known as the "laws" of chemistry
and physics. This is true enough, but it is equally the work of
science to assert that of many things for which mankind demands "an
explanation," there is no explanation. It is further the work and the
service of science to destroy and to remove from men's minds the
baseless and pretended "explanations" which are no explanations but
causes of error, blindness, and suffering.

Science, the destroyer of "explanations," is the purifier of the human
mind, its cleanser from the crippling infection of prehistoric error
and from domination by the terrifying nightmares of our half-animal
ancestry.

Finally, in reference to the very ancient attempt to "explain" life
and consciousness by the assertion that they are due to "spirits"
which enter the bodies of animals and men, I must caution the reader
against supposing that--for those who do not accept the belief that
such spirits exist--the gravity and mystery of the manifestations of
life and consciousness are in any way lessened. Those who reject the
belief in "spirits" do not in consequence reject the ethical and moral
doctrines which have too long been rendered "suspect" by the shadow
cast over them by ancient superstition. The disappearance of that
shadow will reveal friends where enemies