Page:Landmarks of Scientific Socialism-Anti-Duehring-Engels-Lewis-1907.djvu/126

 mistakes. The fact of their error, however, is natural and proves the existence of the truth, and that it can be reached, and the newly arisen prophet has a ready-to-hand stock of final truths of last instance, eternal law and eternal justice. This has happened hundreds, nay, thousands of times, so that it is a wonder that men are still sufficiently credulous to believe it not only of others, but even of themselves. Here we find a prophet clad in the armour of righteousness who proclaims in the old-fashioned way that whoever else may deny there is still one left to declare final truths of last instance. Denial, nay, doubt even, is a weakness, barren confusion, mole-like scepticism, worse than blank nihilism, confusion worse confounded and other little amiabilities of this sort. As with all prophets, there is no scientific investigation, but merely off-hand condemnation.

We might have made mention of the sciences which investigate the laws of human thought, logic and dialectics. Here we are, however, no better off as regards eternal truths. Herr Duehring explains that the dialectic proper is pure nonsense, and the many books which have been and are still being written on logic prove clearly that final truths of last instance are more sparsely distributed than many believe.

Moreover, we are not at all alarmed because the step of science upon which we to-day stand is not a bit more final than any of the preceding steps. Already it includes an immense amount of material for investigation and offers a great chance for specialisation and study to anyone who desires to become expert in any particular branch. Whoever expects to find final and immutable truths in observations which in the very nature of things must remain relative for successive generations, and can only be completed piecemeal, as in cosmogony, geology