1910] "The Stability of Truth" 



identical nature, although, equally without question, 

 a certain large unity pervades the Universe as far as 

 we know it, and we cannot imagine any object or act 

 not enveloped by it. 1 Monism in one sense is a truism 

 not to be denied; in another it may be a matter of 

 words without real significance instead of the greatest 

 of philosophical generalizations, and Haeckel does 

 not make it clear that the latter is the case. Certainly Monism 

 no objective truth is to be drawn from Monism. Nev- " ot a basis 

 ertheless, he pretends to deduce from it a certain 

 number of corollaries, among them the 'Inheritance 

 of Acquired Characters" or "Progressive Evolution." 

 But that dogma, as yet unverified by either observa- 

 tion or experiment, fits just as readily into a con- 

 ception of ' Pluralism." No doctrine which cannot 

 be verified in human action, observation, or experi- 

 ment has any standing in science. The real point is 

 what difference does it make? If none, its roots are in 

 the air and its elaboration is a kind of mental by- 

 play. 



In "The Stability of Truth" I endeavored to show source 

 that all knowledge results from human experience / all J 



iiii i knowledge 



tested and set in order, that science can never be more 

 than relatively complete, but that as far as it goes it 

 deals with absolute truth, and its final test must be 

 this, " Can we trust our lives to it, or to its methods ?" 2 

 As a biologist I take issue also with the (later) dic- 

 tum of Balfour, that life is "merely a disreputable 

 episode in the history of one of the minor planets." 

 Rather is it the beginning of a glorious triumph of 

 intelligence and devotion- - on a "minor planet," to 



1 "Prick the skin of the nearest insect or the nebula that is farthest and you 

 drain the life-blood of Law." EDWIN MILLER WHEELOCK 



2 A few extracts from "The Stability of Truth" will be found in Appendix B 

 of this volume (page 787). 



C 295 3 



