EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



love of truth; by which is meant a dominating 

 affection, so that to have learned the real facts in 

 the course of an argument affords far more satis 

 faction than to have proved your opponent wrong, 

 and so that it causes a grief of soul to see the thing 

 that is not, offered in the guise of the thing that is, 

 even to a school-boy at the antipodes or a savage 

 in Fiji. 



It can be shown, I think, that this belief in the 

 wide-spread prevalence of a love of truth is by no 

 means confined to the protagonists on one side in 

 the conflict between science and dogmatic theology. 

 Let me quote, for instance, from a French educa 

 tionist, M. Laisant, who is referring to the teaching 

 of religion and ethics in schools: 



&quot; L educateur habile, en stimulant dans 1 esprit de son 

 eleve le culte de la verite, en tirant parti tous les exemples, 

 de toutes les observations, de 1 experience quotidienne, 

 arrivera sans peine a fajonner graduellement cette con 

 science d enfant pour en faire une conscience humaine.&quot; 



Now it appears to me that this sentence implicit 

 ly contains a very questionable assumption. The 

 author appears to regard the philosophic temper 

 as a natural appanage of a school - master. His 

 pupils are constantly to see this passion exalted 

 above all others, and are thereby to obtain a firm 

 foundation in ethics. I believe, on the other hand, 

 that it would be a terrible disaster if the formal 

 and explicit teaching of morality were to cease 

 from within our schools. I do not for a moment 



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