200 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



forth be ours no longer; while, in place of a philosophy of life which 

 had grown rich and sacred to us through association, we may have to 

 accept a new theory of the universe and man which for a time at 

 least may seem chilly and bleak and depressing. In such a crisis as 

 this — and few serious-minded men of our generation can hope to 

 escape some mental upheaval attendant upon the progress of thought 

 — we must nerve ourselves with the high doctrine of veracity : " Let 

 fact be fact, and life the thing it can " — first, the truth as we can 

 learn it, and then, whatever happiness or comfort may be gained 

 from it for ourselves and others.* 



Even this is not quite all. Strict adherence to veracity, still fur- 

 ther analyzed, will be found to include not simply fortitude in facing 

 new truths for ourselves, but also the faith that, in the long run, 

 truth will always be better than error for the world at large. Here, 

 of course, we touch a question of acknowledged difficulty, and one of 

 which no adequate treatment can be undertaken in this place. Yet 

 the difficulty must at least be presented. Given a creed or scheme 

 of life which seems to bring hope and comfort to " the complaining 

 millions of men," and many of us, while ourselves convinced of its 

 unsoundness, will more or less deliberately cherish the opinion that it 

 is, on the whole, best that the world should be left unenlightened; 

 and we find a kind of theoretic basis for our position in the modern 

 evolutionary doctrine of the congruity which exists in the average 

 of cases between culture and belief. Many of the older ideas out of 

 which past generations drew strength and inspiration may appear to 

 us to be forever discredited. But shall we, therefore, carry our con- 

 clusions out into the common places of life — into the streets, the mar- 

 kets, the schools ? Shall we force them, from the outside, upon those 

 intellectually and morally unprepared to receive them? Shall we 

 preach them as truths " to those that eddy round and round "? How 

 great is the responsibility of each of us in these matters will be felt 

 at once by all to whom the present problems in conduct are some- 

 thing more than questions for academic speculation. Is there not, it 

 may be urged, a time and a season for all things — even for speaking 

 the truth? And though it may never be conceived as part of our 

 duty to state publicly what we know to be false, may we not often- 

 times be justified in holding our tongues? 



I need hardly say that this is a difficulty to which thoughtful men 

 have been fully alive from the time of the Greek and Eoman moral- 

 ists onward. In our own day it has been powerfully presented in one 



* Noteworthy examples of courage shown in the acceptance of what the writers deemed 

 truth, though unpalatable truth, will be found in James Thomson's sonnet, A Recusant; the 

 last chapter of Romanes's Candid Examination of Theism (pul)lished under the pseudonym 

 of Physicus) ; and the concluding paragraphs of Pearson's National Life and Character. 



