! ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 41 



ence 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 justifica- 

 tion, not by faith, but by verification. 



Thus, without for a mom^H^Betending to 

 despise the practical results of tn^mprovement 

 of natural knowledge, and its beneficial influence 

 on material civilisation, 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 significance 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 advisableness of improving 

 natural knowledge, and so to aid ourselves and 

 our successors in our course towards the noble 

 goal which lies before mankind. 



