INTRODUCTION. XXV11. 



Our Theologians iilso are still continually trammelled and led 

 into trouble by quoting authority two or three hundred years old; 

 while Doctors allow their thousands of patients to die annually 

 through the like blind worship. 



It will lie said that some authority must be acknowledged, 

 else there would be neither science or government. Unques- 

 tionably. But because authority is in power, it does not follow 

 that it should remain unquestioned. All law except nature's 

 is fallible, and can only be kept right by a continual exami- 

 nation. It is the cashier in whom implicit confidence is placed 

 that usually embezzles the funds of the Bank. So if we would 

 have authority and it is a necessity it must be one that 

 undergoes a continual scrutiny, and answers every interrogation 

 promptly. As long as it does so, then reverence it; but once 

 it fails, look out for another more sure. Do not try to prop 

 up a fallacy. The ruin is only the greater when it does fall. 



It may be said that we should have accepted at least some 

 men as authorities. In many things we certainly do, but where 

 their theories conflict with obvious truth, then we throw them 

 at flnce to the winds. Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton, Bacon, and 

 Sir Humphrey Davy were all celebrated men in their day. 

 They were all students of nature, and each, as was said by 

 Newton, picked up but a pebble of truth from an inexhaus- 

 tible shore, knowing that there were many more yet to be 

 discovered. Far be it from us, therefore, to detract any- 

 thing from the honour they deserved, and the glory they 

 earned. But knowledge is no law of the Medes and Persians 

 which changeth not. The dullest school boy may now know 

 what these men would have given worlds to understand. Is it 

 then worthy of such intelligence as we are possessed of, or 



