The Stability of Truth 



might not involve actual race extinction, at least within an 

 appreciable time, but it would work injury in proportion to its 

 importance (in any event tending to lower the plane of exist- 

 ence). 



In no field has science yet reached finality. It sees some 

 things very clearly, but the unknown lies about on every side, a 

 trackless wilderness yet to be cleared and fitted for human 

 habitation. . . . 



The scanty records of the words of Jesus recorded in the four 

 Gospels furnish the living inspiration of a multitude of creeds. 

 These have justified themselves by the truth that is in them, 

 not by religious organizations, the forms and ceremonies, the 

 pomp and circumstance superimposed upon it. When the core 

 of truth is grasped and woven into action, the rest is valueless, 

 however imposing in human eyes. . . . 



It is possible to speak of the unknown in terms of the known, 

 of the infinite in terms of human experience. . . . (Thus 

 arises) the conception of the anthropomorphism of God, a 

 fallacy which gives point to Haeckel's sneer at the current idea 

 of Deity as that of a "gaseous vertebrate." . . . 



The development of all science has been a constant struggle, 

 a struggle of reality against superstition, of actual impressions 

 against traditional interpretations, of truth against "make- 

 believe," of investigation against opinion. Investigation once 

 enthroned as science must again face insurgent opinion, and the 

 recrudescence of ancient folly. For men are prone to trust a 

 theory rather than a fact. A fact is a single point of contact; a 

 theory or a tradition is a circle made of an infinite number of 

 points, none of them, perhaps, real or permanently significant. 



The "warfare of science" is, however, not primarily a conflict 

 with religion as Draper called it, nor even with "dogmatic 

 theology," as President White has indicated. It is all of this 

 and more a conflict of human tendencies worked out in 

 history. The great historical crises are for the most part 

 rehearsed in the minds of men before they unroll on the world 

 stage. In the affairs of life most of us, of necessity, perform 

 deeds and recite phrases "written generations before we were 

 born." . . . 



The warfare ... is the effort of the human mind to relate 

 itself to realities in the midst of tradition and superstition, to 



n 789 n 



