JULT 9j 1915] 



SCIENCE 



41 



pseudo fact for a real one and to abide by 

 the latter till further facts are found. 



These suggestions are simple and pri- 

 mary, yet acceptance of them is all too rare. 

 About all of us is a penumbra shutting out 

 many tniths we would do well to know. 

 Amid the enlightened circle, which is per- 

 haps not of the same size for any two of 

 us, we walk with such light as we have. 

 This perhaps leads us normally to repeat 

 that profound truth from Holy Writ, "If 

 the light that is within you (or, I may add, 

 about you) be darkness, how great is that 

 darkness ! ' ' 



Facts have a cruel way of substituting 

 themselves for fancies. There is nothing 

 more remorseless, just as there is nothing 

 more helpful, than truth. If your head 

 comes in contact with the moving crank- 

 shaft of an engine, the fact as to the rela- 

 tive hardness of the two will be both pain- 

 fully and speedily determined. Yet it 

 would not do to argue that because the 

 crank-shaft breaks your head it was a de- 

 stroying force in the world. Sometimes 

 the head itself is more of a destroying force 

 than the unconscious mechanism which it 

 has created. 



It is well, therefore, to be on the right 

 side of the facts. This means that there 

 are certain standards by which our opin- 

 ions may be judged whether they are false 

 or true. For the truth is not affected by 

 what men think about it. Your or my un- 

 belief in it does not make it less the truth. 

 It is a stern though kindly standard that 

 thus is daily set against our judgments, and 

 if you and I fail to meet the standard it 

 does not hurt the standard but it does hurt 

 us. Those are fine lines which run : 



It fortifies my soul to know 

 That though I perish truth is so; 

 That howsoe'er I stray or range, 

 Whate'er I do truth does not change. 

 I steadier step when I recall 

 That though I slip truth does not fall. 



Shall men be able to rely on you in your 

 working life ? If so, it will be because they 

 find by experience that in word and deed 

 you meet the test of truth. Of one man we 

 say he is fanciful ; of another that he is a 

 dreamer ; of another that he is a pessimist ; 

 and of a fourth, an optimist, and by all 

 these things we mean certain shades of 

 criticism whereby we detect the departure 

 from a certain mental standard of our own 

 as to the relation a man should normally 

 have to facts. 



Prejudice then, and half truths, and nar- 

 rowness of view, and obstinacy of thought, 

 these are all weights men carry in the race 

 of life ; expensive things, bringing at times 

 both pain and poverty into his lot who tol- 

 erates them. 



I have intimated in substance that mod- 

 ern industry is the utilizing of certain facts 

 or the outgrowths of them for the produc- 

 tion of other facts ; or to state it difEerently, 

 that industry represents the practical ap- 

 plication of truth to life. If one passes 

 from the field of industry into public life 

 there is nothing which strikes one more 

 forcibly than the degree of absence of this 

 relation to fact. Our scientific thought, 

 our industrial thought, our agricultural 

 thought, even our artistic and literary 

 thought either pays homage to the laws of 

 truth which govern those activities or at 

 least panders more or less unwillingly to 

 the recognized power of the controlling 

 truths. This condition does not prevail to 

 an equal degree in the discussions of public 

 life. Nothing strikes one, leaving a busi- 

 ness atmosphere for that of public service, 

 more than the inaccuracy in statement and 

 in criticism which is there found. Around 

 the table gather the board of directors of 

 an industrial company. As the facts con- 

 cerning the company's affairs are discussed 

 it is usual for those present to speak of the 

 business in which they are concerned with 



