266 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



to be always afloat in regard to opinions on geology." "I always 

 like to change when I can make a change for the better." 



His liberality in the treatment of difference of opinion was 

 another phase of his devotion to truth. Sensible of the liability 

 to error attending the beliefs of all men, he recognized that only 

 by the criticism of opposing views could truth be reached. The 

 pages of the Journal of Science were always freely open for the 

 presentation of views most widely divergent from those of the 

 editor. "More," he said, "could be learned by studying uncon- 

 formities than conformities/' and this he believed to be as true 

 "of unconFormable opinions as of unconformable strata. 1 



His loyalty to truth was in part an intellectual and in part a 

 moral trait. Intellectually it was related to the clearness of his 

 conceptions. It is the man who never knows exactly what he 

 thinks that falls most easily into the vice of saying something 

 different from what he thinks. But Dana's character was intensely 

 ethical. And with him ethics was always sanctified and glorified 

 religious faith. His view, alike of nature and of human life, 

 ras profoundly theistic. Disloyalty to truth was infidelity to 

 In his scientific investigation he always felt, like Kepler, 

 [that he was thinking God's thoughts after him. 



Dana was not only a theist but a Christian. Religion was a 

 dominant principle in his life. The influences of his childhood 



home were strongly religious, and in his early manhood he made 

 public profession of Christian faith. While residing in New Haven 

 as assistant to Professor Silliman, he became a member of the 

 First Congregational Church in that city. His letters written 

 amid the perils of shipwreck and cannibals in the Exploring 

 Expedition reveal the sincerity of his faith in the providential care 

 of a Heavenly Father. His patience under the restraints imposed 

 upon him by the impairment of his health, and the serene light 

 which brightened the long evening of his life, were in part doubtless 

 the effect of a naturally cheerful spirit, but surely in large part the 

 effect of religious faith. A few months before his death he wrote 

 to Professor J. P. Lesley: "I, too, feel age encroaching on old 

 i Farrington, loc. cit. 



