But how about philosophy? It was moonshine until it began to investigate the elementary properties of matter and energy, and elementary properties are ultimate properties. And religion will be subject to quackery and hypocrisy until it ceases worrying about ultimate properties and busies itself with making earth a paradise. So moonshine mixed with quackery and hypocrisy is the substance of those movements having other than a narrow, earthly aim. No coins are liable to be counterfeited save those which are honored at some bank outside of our humdrum sphere. And as science is supposed to be matter of fact and practical, quack scientists become unthinkable. When, however, was it that philosophy left off being moonshine? It must have been some time ago, for even the ancient Greeks--to say nothing of the Hindus and Chinese--were eager to investigate the elementary properties of matter and energy. As they were in the habit of keeping their science a secret from the common man, we do not know how much science they had. But it is evident from their philosophy that they were always thinking about matter and energy. Their conclusions may sound quaint--though not quite so quaint today as a half-century ago--but it is certain that moonshine was largely mixed with observation until modern metaphysics, predominantly German, took the field. I cannot stop to prove this, but I refer Mr. Dorsey to any Story of Philosophy, even Will Durant’s. I also recommend that he read some good history of science, for he says on page 86: “Science knows nothing of the ultimate origin of the source of energy; it only accepts both facts [what facts?] and goes on with its business of trying to find out what matter is and what energy can do. In other words, the problem of the origin of life is locked up in the origin of matter and of energy.” One often hears this allegation--that science goes on with its own business, leaving the problem of ultimate origin aside. Yet every major hypothesis which science has ever constructed is an attempt to account for this very ultimate origin--or primal origin, if you prefer. It could not be otherwise. How could science try “to find out what matter is” without at the same time trying to find out how matter originated? Neither matter nor energy is a fact, isolated and handed out on a plate for human use. Science must needs attempt to discover the nature of that with which it works. And the only way to explain a fact, let alone acquiring the power of producing phenomena at will, is by discovering a preceding or accompanying fact.