3 co THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



results will move steadily together toward a destined centre. So with 

 all scientific research. Different minds may set out with the most 

 antagonistic views, but the progress of investigation carries them by 

 a force outside of themselves to one and the same conclusion. This 

 activity of thought by which we are carried, not where we wish, but 

 to a foreordained goal, is like the operation of destiny. No modifica- 

 tion of the point of view taken, no selection of other facts for study, 

 no natural bent of mind even, can enable a man to escape the predes- 

 tinate opinion. This great law is embodied in the conception of truth 

 and reality. The opinion which is fated ' to be ultimately agreed to 

 by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object 

 represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would ex- 

 plain reality. 



But it may be said that this view is directly opposed to the abstract 

 definition which we have given of reality, inasmuch as it makes the 

 characters of the real to depend on what is ultimately thought about 

 them. But the answer to this is that, on the one hand, reality is inde- 

 pendent, not necessarily of thought in general, but only of what you 

 or I or any finite number of men may think about it; and that, on the 

 other hand, though the object of the final opinion depends on what 

 that opinion is, yet what that opinion is does not depend on what you 

 or I or any man thinks. Our perversity and that of others may in- 

 definitely postpone the settlement of opinion ; it might even conceiv- 

 ably cause an arbitrary proposition to be universally accepted as long 

 as the human race should last. Yet even that would not change the 

 nature of the belief, which alone could be the result of investigation 

 carried sufficiently far ; and if, after the extinction of our race, 

 another should arise with faculties and disposition for investigation, 

 that true opinion must be the one which they would ultimately come 

 to. " Truth crushed to earth shall rise again," and the opinion which 

 would finally result from investigation does not depend on how any- 

 body may actually think. But the reality of that which is real does 

 depend on the real fact that investigation is destined to lead, at last, 

 if continued long enough, to a belief in it. 



But I may be asked what I have to say to all the minute facts of 

 history, forgotten never to be recovered, to the lost books of the an- 

 cients, to the buried secrets. 



" Full many a gem of purest ray serene 



The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 

 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 

 And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 



Do these things not really exist because they are hopelessly beyond 



1 Fate means merely that, which is sure to come true, and can nohow be avoided. It 

 is a superstition to suppose that a certain sort of events are ever fated, and it is another 

 to suppose that the word fate can never be freed from its superstitious taint. We are 

 all fated to die. 



