238 NATURE AND MAN. 



that the convergence of all these great lines of thought, each 

 of them the resultant of the patient toil of a whole army of 

 scientific workers, is a fact of no account? Absolute truth, no 

 man of science can ever hope to grasp ; for he knows that all 

 human search for it must be limited by human capacity. But 

 he denies the right of any one else to impose upon him, as 

 " absolute truth," his own fallible exposition of the revelation con- 

 veyed in the teachings of religiously-inspired men ; for he claims 

 an equal right to be accounted a true expositor of the revelation 

 conveyed in the Divine Order of the Universe. And the real 

 philosopher, who fixes his hope on a perpetual approximation to 

 that absolute truth which he may never actually grasp— who, for- 

 getting those things which are behind, is always reaching forth 

 to those which are before — who tends towards perfection, without 

 ever //rtending to it — and who is constantly striving upwards, so 

 as either himself to reach, or to help his successors to reach, a yet 

 loftier elevation — believes that he is thus best fulfilling his duty to 

 the Great Giver of his own powers of thought, and to the Divine 

 Author of that Nature in which he deems it his highest privilege 

 to be able to read some of the thoughts of God. 



