Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/162

146 more consoling; we shall bear this testimony, that we have been true and sincere at heart.

Truth to say, I may not linger on such thoughts. History proves this truth, that there is a transcendent instinct in human nature, which urges it to a nobler goal. The development of mankind is not to be explained by the hypothesis that man is only a finite being; virtue but a refinement of egoism; religion but a cheat. Our toil is not in vain, gentlemen. Whatever the author of The Book of Ecclesiastes may have said, in a moment of depression, science is not the worst pursuit which God has given to the sons of men. It is the best. If all is vanity, he who devotes his life to Truth will not be more deceived than others. If Truth and well-being are real, and of that we are assured beyond all contradiction, they who search for them and love them, are they who will have lived best.

Gentlemen, we shall not meet again: in my next lecture I shall go into the depths