350 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 



acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is 

 the highest of duties ; blind faith the one unpardonable 

 sin. And it cannot be otherwise, for every great advance 

 in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection 

 of authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the 

 annihilation of the spirit of blind faith ; and the most 

 ardent votary of science holds his firmest convictions, not 

 because the men he most venerates hold them ; not 

 because their verity is testified by portents and wonders ; 

 but because his experience teaches him that whenever he 

 chooses to bring these convictions into contact with their 

 primary source, Nature whenever he thinks fit to test 

 them by appealing to experiment and to observation 

 Nature will confirm them. The man of science has learned 

 to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification. 



Thus, without for a moment pretending to despise the 

 practical results of the improvement of natural knowledge, 

 and its beneficial influence on material civilization, it 

 must, I think, be admitted that the great ideas, some of 

 which I have indicated, and the ethical spirit which I have 

 endeavoured to sketch, in the few moments which remained 

 at my disposal, constitute the real and permanent signific- 

 ance of natural knowledge. 



If these ideas be destined, as I believe they are, to be 

 more and more firmly established as the world grows older ; 

 if that spirit be fated, as I believe it is, to extend itself 

 into all departments of human thought, and to become 

 co-extensive with the range of knowledge ; if, as our 

 race approaches its maturity, it discovers, as I believe 

 it will, that there is but one kind of knowledge and but 

 one method of acquiring it ; then we, who are still children, 

 may justly feel it our highest duty to recognise the advis- 

 ableness of improving natural knowledge, and so to aid 

 ourselves and our successors in their course towards the 

 noble goal which lies before mankind. 



