162 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



What profits it to the human Prometheus that he 

 has stolen the fire of heaven to be his servant, and 

 that the spirits of the earth and of the air obey him, 

 if the vulture of pauperism is eternally to tear his 

 very vitals and keep him on the brink of destruc- 

 tion ? 



No induction, however broad its basis, can confer 

 certainty in the strict sense of the word. The 

 experience of the whole human race through in- 

 numerable years has shown that stones unsupported 

 fall to the ground, but that does not make it certain 

 that any day next week unsupported stones will not 

 move the other way. All that it does justify is the 

 very strong expectation, which hitherto has been in- 

 variably verified, that they will do just the contrary. 



Only one absolute certainty is possible to man 

 namely, that at any given moment the feeling which 

 he has exists. 



All other so-called certainties are beliefs of greater 

 or less intensity. 



Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That 

 is an article of exclusively human manufacture and 

 very much to our credit. 



There is nothing of permanent value (putting aside 

 a few human affections), nothing that satisfies quiet 

 reflection except the sense of having worked accord- 

 ing to one's capacity and light, to make things clear 

 and get rid of cant and shams of all sorts. That 

 was the lesson I learned from Carlyle's books when 

 I was a boy, and it has stuck by me all my life. 



