General Introduction 



festation of force, and throughout time in every 

 transformation of matter, yet more has betided 

 the great epoch in which we live. Nothing else 

 than the dignifying and perfecting the instru- 

 ment by which these tremendous accessions to 

 thought have been carved out the scientific 

 method now confessed the one trustworthy 

 means for the winning of all truth. It is too 

 soon to forecast its future victories, for the men 

 who wield it are too few and too newly drilled to 

 have more than begun an attack which not only 

 in the sphere of natural science, but in the fields 

 of art, history and criticism, in reforms moral 

 and religious, social and political, must ever 

 gather strength and sweep. Yet already the 

 vanguard of the army of science is assembled 

 and in motion ; we can see the direction its forces 

 are taking, and the discipline under which they 

 advance. In all its work, artistic, literary, 

 critical, in fields of reform, it means reality, ac- 

 curacy, fidelity to the directly observed and 

 carefully comprehended fact. It disregards 

 traditions, legends and guesses, however closely 

 associated with great names or ancient institu- 

 tions. In their stead it is erecting a new authority, 

 which finds its sanctions in knowledge, in obser- 

 vation, experiment, reasoning; in untiring, im- 

 partial verification. Glad when it can find, as it 

 often can, that men of old time had a fore-feeling 

 of modern scientific truth, but under all circum- 

 stances loyally pledged to declare exactly what 

 it discovers, however much that loyalty may 



