XV. 

 THE STRUGGLE FOR REALITIES. 



IT is said that every tie in the Panama Railway cost 

 a man his life. Whether this be true or not, it may 

 serve as an illustration of the progress 

 t"ruth Prie of human knowledge. Every step in the 



advance of science has cost the life of a 

 man. And this price of truth has been paid in two dif- 

 ferent ways. It may take a lifetime of the severest 

 labour to find out a new fact. No truth comes to man 

 unless he asks for it; and it takes years of patience and 

 devotion to ask of Nature even one new question. He 

 is already a master in science who can suggest a new 

 experiment. 



In the second place, the truth-seeker has had to 

 struggle for his physical life. Each acquisition of 

 truth has been resisted by the full force of the inertia 

 of satisfaction with preconceived ideas. Just as a new 

 thought comes to us with a shock which rouses the re- 

 sistance of our personal conservatism, so a new idea is 

 met and repelled by the conservatism of society. 



And as each individual in his own secret heart be- 

 lieves himself in some degree the subject of the favour 



of the mysterious unseen powers, so 

 The mystic doeg sodet in all the ages find a mys . 



sanction. . 



tic or divine warrant for its own attitude 



toward life or action, whatever that may be. 

 366 



