RESULTS.--These new conceptions of matter, of life, and of mind, which are the products of the new physics, the new biology, and the new psychology respectively, may be confidently left to themselves to work out their own salvation. They have the strength of youth. What is evident is that we have crossed the threshold of a new era in the history of science. The outlook of the future will be as different from that of the recent past as was the new science of Galileo, Descartes, and Newton from the dogmatic but fanciful notions which the Scholastic theologians had borrowed from Aristotle, and sought to impose as a permanent revelation. The current of thought is never stayed. The future is obscure, but one thing is certain, that the coming generations will see catastrophic changes in the outlook of science; and the materialistic and mechanistic _weltanschauung_, which lately seemed so formidable, may soon become as superannuated as astrology. The theory which overshadowed the religious life of a century, and which had become more and more menacing as scientific knowledge increased in extent and popularity, has fallen into discredit. Its prestige will not revive. CHAPTER XIII SOME FINAL CONSIDERATIONS VALUE OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.--It may perhaps be felt that our protracted excursion has not advanced us far beyond the position at which we stood in the opening chapter. Indeed, the history of philosophy may seem not to establish any very definite conclusions; and those who study the subject in the hope that it will supply them with material for dogmatising are likely to be disappointed. We have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that the riddle of the universe has as yet received no final solution at the hands of the metaphysicians. It is only too evident that, as the poet says: "Our little systems have their day, They have their day, and cease to be." And yet it would be an error to suppose that this lack of finality about philosophical opinion, or the want of unanimity among philosophers, indicates that no progress has been made. There are certain landmarks in the history of philosophy--such as Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason_--which mark a point behind which we shall not again regress (assuming that our culture and civilisation is preserved). Even if we have not grasped the whole truth about things yet, we are still justified in assuming that we are gradually, if painfully, getting nearer to the goal. But surely we are entitled to believe that it is not the crude appetite for metaphysical dogma that attracts men to the history of philosophy. Its fascination rather resembles that of the history of religion: both are, as it were, Odysseys of the human spirit; nor is there any activity of man that has not its appeal to the human heart: for _cor ad cor loquitur_.