and the law of
evolution--that only by the triumph of the former over the latter is
progress possible in the world. Again, I ask, since conscience is not
the voice of Nature, of what is conscience the voice and witness if not
of one of whom it is written, "In the beginning was Reason; in the
beginning was Mind"?[3]

But there is another aspect of the question, and we must now pass on to
inquire how far conscience is also "the voice of man commanding us to
live for the right". Quite at the beginning of this ethical movement
we protested, as plainly as words would allow, our entire allegiance to
the teachings of physical science, and our readiness to abandon any
doctrine of ethical religion which is disproved by experimental
research. So convinced are we of the absolute unity of truth, because
with Plato we believe in the unity of its source in the Divine
intelligence, that to us it is inconceivable that there should be any
fundamental contradiction in the orders of the real and the ideal.
Things seen and unseen, the passing and the eternal, both ultimately
take their origin in the same source, the Infinite. No finite thing
can be the ultimate explanation of the universe, because it itself
requires explanation. Hence, whatever science has to tell us about
conscience will be enthusiastically acclaimed by us as true equally
with what we learn from the masters of the higher experience, the
philosophers who break unto us the bread of life.

Now what has experimental science to say about the conscience? It does
_not_ say that it is the voice of God--a fact by no means calculated to
disturb those who remember that physical investigation is not concerned
with such speculations. Half the mischief and misunderstandings which
occur over these border questions, which are, so to speak, under two
jurisdictions, arise from our forgetting in what capacity and by what
principles certain well-known scientific men have made pronouncements
on matters such as conscience, morality and religion. There are two
sides to them, the physical and the hyper-physical or metaphysical.
And here it may not be amiss to offer a suggestion that one should
mistrust that parrot cry so often heard from men who speak most
confidently about that which they know least, that metaphysic is
synonymous with unreality, or in plainer words, moonshine. A very
little reflection will be sufficient to satisfy us that without the aid
of conceptions higher than th