THE DESIRE OF TRUTH. 195 



an example. The sun is the visible centre of light, heat, 

 organic life ; in fine, of all the movements of our material 

 world. Yet it is but a relative focus, since the sun, with its 

 planetary train, revolves, probably, in company with other 

 suns or systems, around a centre as yet unknown ; and as 

 there is no reason why we should pause in this cycloidal pro- 

 gression, this second centre or focus of systems may revolve 

 around a third, the third around a fourth, and so on. Thus 

 we shall have an indeterminate series of relative centres j for 

 the term does not exist of which we can say, there is the 

 beginning, or here is the end of the series. 



We do not meet with the absolute in the material, any more 

 than in the intellectual world. Truth, by its power of attrac- 

 tion, sets in motion all the wheels of our understanding ; we 

 seek after it eagerly, in the doubt which torments us, in the 

 obscurity which surrounds us ; we all feel the need of being 

 enlightened by it, and warmed, and revivified ; we all are in 

 need of belief, and, at the same time, of possessing let there 

 be no illusion in this respect a certainty or demonstration 

 of what we believe. 



But the truth which we think our own does not leave the 

 mind at rest; a slight effort suffices, in fact, to teach us 

 that the truth we accept depends upon another and remoter 

 truth, and that the world of thought is thus carried onward in 

 an interminable series of relative truths ; unless we find it 

 more convenient to pause here at a primary cause, as else- 

 where at a primordial centre, which we may ever identify with 

 the primary cause. But is this truth, supposed to be final, 



