So at the end of his life Clerk-Maxwell characteristically observed, that he had studied many queer religions and philosophies, but had found none of them that would work without God concealed somewhere. Finally, a warning uttered by Lord Rayleigh in the address quoted above must not be forgotten. After acknowledging that "unfortunately" there are writers speaking in her name who have set themselves to foster the prevailing belief that Science necessarily tends towards materialism, he thus continued: It would be easy, however, to lay too much stress upon the opinions of even such distinguished workers as these. Men who devote their lives to investigation cultivate a love of truth for its own sake, and endeavour instinctively to clear up, and not, as is too often the object in business and politics, to obscure, a difficult question. So far the opinion of a scientific worker may have a special value; but I do not think that he has a claim superior to that of other educated men, to assume the attitude of a prophet. In his heart he knows that underneath the theories that he constructs there lie contradictions which he cannot reconcile. The higher mysteries of being, if penetrable at all by the human intellect, require other weapons than those of calculation and experiment. XII PURPOSE AND CHANCE An objection is no doubt awaiting us which many consider absolutely fatal to the argument for purpose or design in nature, as above presented. That argument, it will be said, rests entirely upon the assumption that the sole alternative to Purpose is _Chance_, an assumption which, if not dishonest, betrays ignorance scarcely less discreditable: for men of science constantly warn us that there is no such thing as Chance,--that every occurrence in nature, one as much as another, testifies to the uniformity and regularity of natural causation,--and that if we speak of any phenomenon being due to Chance, this term is but a conventional symbol signifying that we do not know what caused it. Amongst those who take up this position, which is well-nigh universal, no better representative need be sought than Professor Huxley, who treated the point formally, and was manifestly well satisfied with his performance. We have already heard him declare belief in Chance to be an absurdity of which none but parsons could be guilty, a class in which he clearly conceived the low-water-mark of intelligence to be reached. On another occasion,[154] he set himself expressly to the exposure of what he described as, "The most singular of the, perhaps immortal, fallacies, which live on, Tithonus-like, when sense and force have long deserted them."