4 GENERAL VIEW AND BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. 



and forget that all men are not only morally bound to 

 love and seek the truth, but to take the most effectual 

 means in their power for finding it; and, therefore, to 

 cultivate specially those faculties by which truth is 

 detected. The duty of seeking truth is a fundamental 

 one, and inseparable from our existence ; it is a debt we 

 owe in return for the blessings of life. 



Without attributing any undue importance to ori- 

 ginal scientific research, it may be affirmed that one of 

 the most perfect ways in which we can show our obedience 

 to the Creator, and our feeling of thankfulness for the 

 numberless blessings we enjoy, is to develop new truth, 

 and thus hand down a larger share of its good results to 

 our successors. One of the greatest bequests man can 

 make to his fellow men, is a discovery of a great general 

 truth. Discoveries are 'living waters' fresh from the 

 fountain of intelligence. ' The discoveries of great men 

 never leave us ; they are immortal ; they contain those 

 eternal truths which survive the shock of empires.' J 



Many persons desire to acquire new truth, without 

 making the necessary self-sacrifice to obtain it, and 

 search for it without the guidance of sufficient know- 

 ledge, by looking for it in ideas which are incapable of 

 demonstration, or which are not yet ripe for proof, for- 

 getting that the love of truth, however strong, is power- 

 less to enable us to find it in such cases. And if only one- 

 tenth of the human energy which is continually being 

 ineffectually expended in this way, and in promulgating 

 improvable hypotheses as settled truths, was judiciously 

 employed, the will of Grod in nature would be much 

 more quickly discovered. 



Pure science appears to be the only subject on which 

 all persons who possess knowledge think alike, because 



1 Buckle. 



