Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/69

Rh these back again into audible vibrations, with so much of the individual tone of a speaker as to be readily recognizable. Now, if iron, which is comparatively so simple a thing, presents such a multitude of properties and powers, if it be shown to have relations with all else in Nature, if very important knowledge respecting it has but recently come into our possession, how very cautiously should we proceed when our subject of thought is not a chemical element, but, say, some large question of human nature or public policy! The little gray crystal of iron is eloquent in bidding us have some decent hesitation, when we are considering, say, some proposed legislation which is to affect the complex sentiments, desires, and passions of men. For lack of that decent hesitation, statute-books are filled with laws which are evaded, or work results opposed to those expected from them, all tending to establish in the popular mind an injurious contradiction between law and common sense. And what supreme diffidence should there be when we are endeavoring to arrive at, not some knowledge in a special science, not the best policy in a matter of law or state, but when we approach the highest questions: How best can we interpret Nature so as to form a conception of its informing spirit? If a man die, shall he live again? What are the sanctions and what the standard of right conduct? Which is the higher reverence, that which accepts the dictum of a local and arbitrary authority in response to these questions, or that which considers them patiently in the light of all human experience to the present day, by the aid of the highest faculties we possess? We are often told to bow to authority in the singular, but we are surrounded not by authority but by authorities, many and diverse. Among them all—religious, social, or scientific—we can but lean on such common sense as we possess to aid us in selection and discipleship.

I have defined truth to be the reality of things underlying our partial knowledge of them. Our forefathers thought of truth as a thing which they might grasp as fully and perfectly as a child's hand incloses a pebble; our conception is of something which we may approach, but never possess, save in the restricted field of axiom. We think of truth as of the dim face of a star, discerned through difficulties of distance, distortions of media, and defects of the seeing eye. The old view of finality, completeness, and perfection in knowledge, we discard as utterly disproved by fact. Science knows nothing of the infallibilities it was aforetime thought necessary to assume. The infallible standards of Church, Bible, and intuition have never yielded to inquiry more than the verbal husk of assumed certainty. Science accepts the risks of a fallibility which can not be escaped, but which it reduces to a minimum by the co-operation of many minds. The desire to be certain, which set up the oracles and established the successive infallibilities is, however, an intelligible desire. Doubt and ignorance are not pleasant states of mind to acknowledge, and the