The Knowable

 The new religion will base itself upon the facts of life, as demonstrated by experience and reason; for to the modern thinker the basis of all interest is truth, and the wonders of the microscope and the telescope, of the new psychology² and the new sociology are more wonderful than all the magic recorded in ancient Mythologies³. And even if this were not so, the business of the thinker is to follow the facts. The history of all philosophy might be summed up in this simile⁴: The infant opens his eyes and sees the moon, and stretches out his hands and cries for it, but those in charge do not give it to him, and so after a while the infant tires of crying, and turns to his mother's breast and takes a drink of milk.

Man demands to know the origin of life; it is intolerable for him to be here, and not know how, or whence, or why. He demands the knowledge immediately and finally, and invents innumerable systems and creeds⁵. He makes himself believe them, with fire and torture makes other men believe them; until finally, in the confusion of a million theories, it occurs to him to investigate his instruments, and he makes the discovery that his tools are inadequate⁶, and all their products worthless. His mind is finite, while the thing he seeks is infinite; his knowledge is relative, while the First Cause is absolute.

This realization⁷ we owe to Immanuel Kant, the father of modern philosophy. In his famous "antinomies", he proved four propositions: first, that the universe is limitless in time and space; second, that matter is composed of simple, indivisible elements; third, that free will is impossible; and fourth, that there must be an absolute or first cause. And having proven these things, he turned round and proved their opposites, with arguments exactly as unanswerable. Any one who follows these demonstrations⁸ and understands them, takes all his metaphysical learning and lays it on the shelf with his astrology and magic.

It is a fact, which every one who wishes to think must get clear, that when you are dealing⁹ with absolutes and ultimates, you can prove whatever you want to prove. Metaphysics is like the fourth dimension; you fly into it and come back upside down, hindside foremost, inside out; and when you get tired of this condition, you take another flight, and come back the way you were before. So metaphysical thinking serves the purpose of Catholic cheats like Cardinal¹⁰ Newman and Professor Chatterton-Hill; it serves hysterical¹¹ women like "Mother" Eddy¹²; it serves the New-thoughters, who wish to fill their bellies¹³ with wind; it serves the charlatans¹⁴ and mystagogs who wish to befuddle¹⁵ the wits of the populace. Real thinkers avoid it as they would a bottomless swamp; they avoid, not merely the idealism of Platonists and Hegelians, but the monism of Haeckel, and the materialism¹⁶ of Buechner and Jacques Loeb. The simple fact is that it is as impossible to prove the priority of origin and the ultimate nature of matter as it is of mind; so that the scientist who lays down a materialist¹⁷ dogma is exactly as credulous¹⁸ as a Christian¹⁹.

How then are we to proceed? Shall we erect²⁰ the mystery into an Unknowable, like Spencer, and call ourselves Agnostics with a capital letter, like Huxley? Shall we follow Frederic Harrison, making an inadequate divinity out of our impotence? I have read the books of the "Positivists", and attended their imitation church in London, but I did not get any satisfaction from them. In the midst of their dogmatic pronouncements I found myself remembering how the egg falls apart and reveals a chicken, how the worm suddenly discovers itself a butterfly. The spirit of man is a breaker of barriers, and it seems a futile²¹ occupation to set limits upon the future. Our business is not to say what men will know ten thousand years from now, but to content ourselves with the simple statement of what men know now. What we know is a procession of phenomena²² called an environment; our life being an act of adjustment to its changes, and our faith being the conviction that this adjustment is possible and worth while.

In the beginning the guide is instinct, and the act of trust is automatic. But with the dawn of reason the thinker has to justify²³ his faith; to convince himself that life is sincere, that there is worth-whileness in being, or in seeking to be; that there is order in creation, laws which can be discovered, processes which can be applied²⁴. Just as the babe trusts life when it gropes for its mother's breast, so the most skeptical²⁵ of scientists trusts it when he declares that water is made of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, and sets it down for a certainty that this will always be so—that he is not being played with by some sportive demon¹, who will today cause H2O to behave like water, and tomorrow like benzine.

 

1 demon   

n.魔鬼，恶魔

参考例句：

• The demon of greed ruined the miser's happiness.贪得无厌的恶习毁掉了那个守财奴的幸福。
• He has been possessed by the demon of disease for years.他多年来病魔缠身。

2 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

3 mythologies   

神话学( mythology的名词复数 )； 神话（总称）； 虚构的事实； 错误的观点

参考例句：

• a study of the religions and mythologies of ancient Rome 关于古罗马的宗教和神话的研究
• This realization is enshrined in "Mythologies." 这一看法见诸于他的《神话集》一书。

4 simile   

n.直喻，明喻

参考例句：

• I believe this simile largely speaks the truth.我相信这种比拟在很大程度上道出了真实。
• It is a trite simile to compare her teeth to pearls.把她的牙齿比做珍珠是陈腐的比喻。

5 creeds   

（尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• people of all races, colours and creeds 各种种族、肤色和宗教信仰的人
• Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds. 天主教徒对于新教教义来说，是不可知论者。

6 inadequate   

adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的

参考例句：

• The supply is inadequate to meet the demand.供不应求。
• She was inadequate to the demands that were made on her.她还无力满足对她提出的各项要求。

7 realization   

n.实现；认识到，深刻了解

参考例句：

• We shall gladly lend every effort in our power toward its realization.我们将乐意为它的实现而竭尽全力。
• He came to the realization that he would never make a good teacher.他逐渐认识到自己永远不会成为好老师。

8 demonstrations   

证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威

参考例句：

• Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
• The new military government has banned strikes and demonstrations. 新的军人政府禁止罢工和示威活动。

9 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

10 cardinal   

n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的

参考例句：

• This is a matter of cardinal significance.这是非常重要的事。
• The Cardinal coloured with vexation. 红衣主教感到恼火，脸涨得通红。

11 hysterical   

adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的

参考例句：

• He is hysterical at the sight of the photo.他一看到那张照片就异常激动。
• His hysterical laughter made everybody stunned.他那歇斯底里的笑声使所有的人不知所措。

12 eddy   

n.漩涡，涡流

参考例句：

• The motor car disappeared in eddy of dust.汽车在一片扬尘的涡流中不见了。
• In Taylor's picture,the eddy is the basic element of turbulence.在泰勒的描述里，旋涡是湍流的基本要素。

13 bellies   

n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的

参考例句：

• They crawled along on their bellies. 他们匍匐前进。
• starving children with huge distended bellies 鼓着浮肿肚子的挨饿儿童

14 charlatans   

n.冒充内行者，骗子( charlatan的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There are lots of phonies and charlatans in the financial newsletter business. 干金融通讯这一行的人中间不乏骗子和吹牛大王。 来自辞典例句
• But wicked people and charlatans will go from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived. 但是恶人和行诈术的人却越来越坏，他们迷惑人，也必受人迷惑。 来自互联网

15 befuddle   

v.使混乱

参考例句：

• This is clearly designed to befuddle the public.这显然是为了蒙蔽舆论。
• Don't befuddle me with all those masses of detail.不要拿一大堆琐事把我搞迷糊。

16 materialism   

n.［哲］唯物主义，唯物论；物质至上

参考例句：

• Idealism is opposite to materialism.唯心论和唯物论是对立的。
• Crass materialism causes people to forget spiritual values.极端唯物主义使人忘掉精神价值。

17 materialist   

n. 唯物主义者

参考例句：

• Promote materialist dialectics and oppose metaphysics and scholasticism. 要提倡唯物辩证法，反对形而上学和烦琐哲学。
• Whoever denies this is not a materialist. 谁要是否定这一点，就不是一个唯物主义者。

18 credulous   

adj.轻信的，易信的

参考例句：

• You must be credulous if she fooled you with that story.连她那种话都能把你骗倒，你一定是太容易相信别人了。
• Credulous attitude will only make you take anything for granted.轻信的态度只会使你想当然。

19 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

20 erect   

n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的

参考例句：

• She held her head erect and her back straight.她昂着头，把背挺得笔直。
• Soldiers are trained to stand erect.士兵们训练站得笔直。

21 futile   

adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的

参考例句：

• They were killed,to the last man,in a futile attack.因为进攻失败，他们全部被杀，无一幸免。
• Their efforts to revive him were futile.他们对他抢救无效。

22 phenomena   

n.现象

参考例句：

• Ade couldn't relate the phenomena with any theory he knew.艾德无法用他所知道的任何理论来解释这种现象。
• The object of these experiments was to find the connection,if any,between the two phenomena.这些实验的目的就是探索这两种现象之间的联系，如果存在着任何联系的话。

23 justify   

vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护

参考例句：

• He tried to justify his absence with lame excuses.他想用站不住脚的借口为自己的缺席辩解。
• Can you justify your rude behavior to me?你能向我证明你的粗野行为是有道理的吗？

24 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

25 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。