VERA CITY. 205 



be fact, no matter whether it may fit into onr preconceived theories 

 or make havoc of them, we ask : How best are these high qualities to 

 be cultivated? What is the method and training by which such 

 results are to be secured? — we shall find that in the very terms of our 

 statement the answer is clearly given by implication. It is in the 

 scientific spirit, and in the sj)read of scientific ideals, methods, and 

 habits of mind, that we have to seek the ultimate cause of philo- 

 sophical veracity. Of this austere virtue, science itself offers the one 

 great training school. We are there taught, as we are taught no- 

 where else, to estimate evidence and weigh hypotheses; to discount 

 ready-made conclusions, and set aside authority and tradition; to 

 look steadily at facts and theories, and hold lightly to creeds and 

 systems as, in the nature of things, nothing more than provisional. 

 Such drill, such training in mental conduct, is bound to affect the 

 whole life, nurturing patience, reserve, precision of observation, 

 thought, and statement, care in forming opinions, the judicial temper 

 of mind, on which stress has been laid. ISTor is this all. Science 

 furthermore teaches us, and beyond all things else, to seek fact as 

 fact, allowing the judgment to be in no way swayed or disturbed 

 by any consideration of its real or supposed consequences. Else- 

 where, truth may be made subordinate to social convenience, es- 

 tablished philosophies, pet theories of man, nature, and God. In 

 science, it is sought for its own sake, and from first to last is held 

 supreme. 



The difference between the scientific and the non-scientific spirit 

 in these important matters is made clear when we remind ourselves 

 that almost every great conclusion established by scientists has at the 

 outset been angrily denounced on account of its imagined bearings 

 upon questions of conduct or the creeds of the organized churches 

 and schools. When, to take only a single conspicuous illustration, 

 Darwin published the results of his investigations into the origin of 

 species and the descent of man, pulpits and newspapers all over the 

 civilized world vehemently attacked the new doctrines because " they 

 made a personal God unnecessary," or " debased man to the level 

 of brutes," or " tended to materialism," or " contradicted the first 

 chapter of Genesis," or did something else equally impertinent, 

 equally subversive of preconceived ideas. And even where no ran- 

 cor was shown, the position too often assumed was no less fatal to 

 genuine veracity. " Here is the established creed of my party and 

 church; as this is truth, whatever does not harmonize with it must 

 be false; the Darwinian hypothesis does not harmonize with it — it 

 is therefore false; it only remains in one way or another to dis- 

 prove it; let me cast about to see how this can be done." This, I 

 think, is no unfair description of the popular plan of campaign; and 



