16 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



I.XXI 



Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed. 



The method of scientific investigation is nothing 

 i>ut the expression of the necessary mode of working 

 of the human mind. It is simply the mode in which 

 all phenomena are reasoned about, rendered precise 

 and exact. 



There are men (and I think Priestley was one of 

 them) to whom the satisfaction of throwing down a 

 triumphant fallacy is as great as that which attends 

 the discovery of a new truth ; who feel better 

 satisfied with the government of the world, when 

 they have been helping Providence by knocking an 

 imposture on the head ; and who care even more for 

 freedom of thought than for mere advance of 

 knowledge. These men are the Carnots who 

 organise victory for truth, and they are, at least, as 

 important as the generals who visibly fight her battles 

 in the field. 



Material advancement has its share in moral and 

 intellectual progress. Becky Sharp's acute remark 

 that it is not difficult to be virtuous on ten thousand 

 a year, has its application to nations ; and it is futile 

 to expect a hungry and squalid population to be 

 anything but violent and gross. 



If the twentieth century is to be better than the 

 nineteenth, it will be because there are among us 



