IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 141 



mortals ; and our progress is, for the most past, 

 like that of a tacking ship, the resultant of opposite 

 divergencies from the straight path. But, for all 

 that, there is one moral benefit which the pursuit 

 of science unquestionably bestows. It keeps the 

 estimate of the value of evidence up to the proper 

 mark ; and we are constantly receiving lessons, 

 and sometimes very sharp ones, on the nature of 

 proof. Men of science will always act up to their 

 standard of veracity, when mankind in general 

 leave off sinning ; but that standard appears to me 

 to be higher among them than in any other class 

 of the community. 



I do not know any body of scientific men who 

 could be got to listen without the strongest ex- 

 pressions of disgusted repudiation to the exposition 

 of a pretended scientific discovery, which had no 

 better evidence to show for itself than the story 

 of the devils entering a herd of swine, or of the 

 fig-tree that was blasted for bearing no figs when 

 " it was not the season of figs." Whether such 

 events are possible or impossible, no man can say ; 

 but scientific ethics can and does declare that the 

 profession of belief in them, on the evidence of 

 documents of unknown date and of unknown 

 authorship, is immoral. Theological apologists 

 who insist that morality will vanish if their 

 dogmas are exploded, would do well to consider 

 the fact that, in the matter of intellectual veracity, 

 science is already a long way ahead cf the 



