SCIENCE AND MENTAL IMPROVEMENT. 99 



Now, in evolution, also, we have no new truth, but only an old truth 

 in a new form : and lo ! how it startles us out of our propriety ! The 

 evolution of the individual by a slow process from a microscopic germ. 

 Everybody knows this. Yet it has never heretofore interfered with a 

 belief in an intelligent Maker of each of us. Perhaps most of you may 

 remember, when first at your mother's knee, you were asked, " Who 

 made you?" and you answered as you were taught, "God made me." 

 But suppose you had asked in return, " How?" The only true answer 

 would have been, " By a process of evolution." Yes, every one of us 

 was individually made (and is not this far more important for us in- 

 dividually than any origin of species, even of the human species ?) by a 

 slow process of evolution irom a microscopic spherule of unorganized 

 protoplasm the germ-cell. Yet the knowledge of this fact did not 

 make us ridicule the reverent answer of the little one, or despise the 

 pious teachings of the mother. Why, then, should it be different in this 

 case of the origin of species by evolution ? 



Again, all vexed questions are such, because there is truth on both 

 sides. Unmixed error does not live to plague us long. Error lives only 

 by virtue of a contained germ of truth. In all vexed questions, there- 

 fore, there are three views, viz., two opposing, partial, one-sided views, 

 and a third, more rational and comprehensive, which combines and rec- 

 onciles them. 



I can best illustrate this by the familiar story of the fabled shield. 

 You well remember how, in the good old times of knight-errantry, this 

 shield was hung up in the sight of all men in token of the fact that the 

 owner challenged the world to mortal combat. You well remember 

 that the shield having been seen by many knights, these knights, on 

 comparing notes, could not agree as to its color, some declaring that it 

 was white, and some equally certain that it was black. You well re- 

 member that after many lances had been splintered, after many broken 

 heads and bloody noses had been endured in the vain attempt to settle 

 this vexed question, by the blundering logic of blows and knocks, as was 

 the fashion in those days (alas ! do we not even now settle many 

 questions in the same way, only we call the process now, the " logic 

 of events'''') after, I say, many blows had been given and taken in the 

 sacred cause of truth, some one who, strange to say, had something of 

 the spirit of science, and who, therefore, thought that truth was to be 

 discovered, not by conflict, but by observation, proposed that the shield 

 be examined. The result you all know one side was white and the 

 other was black. 



Now, do you not observe that both parties in this dispute were 

 right and both were wrong ? Each was right from his point of view. 

 Each was wrong in excluding the other point of view in imagining 

 his truth to be the whole truth. And do you not observe also that the 

 true view combined and reconciled the two partial views ? There is an 

 old adage that " truth lies in the middle," between antagonistic ex- 



