30 



DISCOVERY 



CH. 



merely carried on their kind, benefiting nothing by the 

 past, gaining nothing for the future. That is not the 

 kind of life by which evolution has proceeded. It is 

 the desire to learn by experience not only our own 

 experience but also the experience of others that has 

 raised the human race to its present position. We owe 

 it to ourselves and to future generations to do what we 

 can to secure a further increase of that knowledge by 

 which our redemption from brute creation has been 

 accomplished. 



Let knowledge grow from more to more 



But more of reverence in us dwell. Tennyson. 



The recognition that knowledge of the physical 

 universe is only the bud of a flower which can never 

 be seen in its perfection is the salvation of science. 

 Nature acknowledges no exclusive claims to truth or 

 right of dictatorship in her name either to this generation 

 or the next. The scientific man has to work for truth 

 so far as her ways can be comprehended by him, but he 

 is never more than a trustee for posterity, and has no 

 authority to define the functions or limit the freedom 

 of those who follow him. When men believe that 

 complete truth has been revealed to them they restrain 

 inquiry and persecute those who fail to see the same 

 light. This position should never be taken in science, 

 which invites investigation, welcomes criticism, and 

 rejoices at new truths to supersede or supplement 

 the old. 



When men are striving for the discovery of truth in its various 

 manifestations, they learn that it is by correcting the mistakes 

 of preceding investigators that progress is made, and they have 

 charity for criticism. Hence persecution for difference of opinion 

 becomes an absurdity. The labours of scientific men are forming 

 a great body of doctrine that can be appealed to with confidence 



