Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



as existing apart from feeling. If, for instance, 

 a proposition in Geometry can be really shown to 

 be based on the axioms, it is true, not intellectually 

 or absolutely, but as an expression of my primary 

 Geometrical sense ; and if my giving a few pence 

 to a crossing sweeper is based not on a mere im- 

 pression of duty, or an anxiety to appear charitable, 

 or wish to escape his importunity, but on genuine 

 regard for the man, then it is true, not in any absolute 

 signification, but just as an expression of what it 

 professes to represent — namely my primary sense 

 of humanity. Indeed the truest truth is that 

 which is the expression of the deepest feeling, 

 and if there is an absolute truth it can only be 

 known and expressed by him who has the absolute 

 feeling or Being within himself. 



This being so — and the nature of the intellec- 

 tual processes being, like the links in a chain, 

 transitional — it becomes obvious that the intellec- 

 tual results may figure as a 7neans but never as 

 an end in themselves. To hang any weight of 

 reliance on them in the latter sense is like the 

 Chinese Trick — described by Marco Polo — of 

 throwing a rope's end up in the air and then 

 climbing up the rope. Hence it appears that 

 our scientific theories are perfectly legitimate, as 

 long as they are formed as a means towards 

 ■practical applications. In that sense they are 

 transitional ; they are formed, not as substantial 

 truths, but merely as links in a chain towards some 

 definite practical result. For this purpose we may 

 form whatever theories are convenient : if we 



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