656 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



ing hypothesis, and some theories to test ; but this is far different from having a 

 position to maintain at all hazards. 



Another serious obstacle to the search for truth is that men are too apt to 

 accept the "confident assertions and well-put arguments" of popular writers and 

 speakers without inquiry, when these accord with the views they wish to believe. 

 The merest charlatan has only to say his opinions are based upon those of some 

 "distinguished investigator," — whose name he is very careful not to mention, — 

 to give his assertions the full weight, in the minds of many, of a naturalist or 

 statesman, a theologian or philosopher, who has exhausted his subject in original 

 and painstaking research. We have ample illustration of this sort of special 

 pleading and of the suicidal popular craving for it, (without mentioning numer- 

 ous others) in the criminal distortions of the teachings of both nature and Script- 

 ure in the interests of infidelity, and the hardly less criminal ignorance of these 

 things in the interest of religion. It is sadly humiliating to see those whose pro- 

 fessions would argue clearer discrimination, grasping at untenable theories be- 

 cause they are fancied to establish notions one wishes to maintain, or positions 

 supposed to be essential. This state of things is largely due to the popular will- 

 ingness to be imposed upon and the vicious cramming system of ordinary school 

 instruction; both tending to the destruction of independent thought. 



While this practice of running wildly after every new theory is pernicious in 

 its effects upon the legitimate investigations of our times, the fact that great 

 changes in sentiment and practice are yet to be looked for should not be ignored. 

 There are, doubtless, phenomena continually exhibited all about us which we 

 do not even perceive, much less understand, but which it is the office of inde- 

 pendent thought to discover, investigate, and explain. That revolutions are yet 

 to take place, the rotten foundations of our present political fabrics but too clearly 

 indicate. Bickerings and jealousies in the church show that it must have yet 

 other reformations. And the arbitrary laws of popular custom need to be com- 

 pletely revolutionized. Lack of the habit of observation, tenacious adhesion to^ 

 party and precedent, selfishness, and fear of violating the exactions of society, 

 are the obstacles here. Undue conservatism tends no less to lock the wheels of 

 intellectual progress than excessive fanaticism. 



The bull-dog method of convincing an audience or an individual is another 

 fruitful source of evil. There are intellectual highwaymen who assert with such 

 positiveness their unsubstantiated tenets, — as if annihilation, total and immediate^ 

 would be the price of non-acceptance, — that ordinary minds tacitly assent, on 

 the principle that discretion is the better part of valor. They are simply over- 

 powered, not convinced. AVhen one in the form and fashion of a man, with 

 commanding impudence thunders out, either in word or in substance, "you are 

 wrong, sir, and I am right, and you are a fool if you don't admit it," I yield to- 

 him as I would a bandit with a loaded pistol at my head, and with very much 

 the same feeling toward him. He has by brute force suppressed all expression 

 of opinion from any who would not be as ill-mannered as himself; but has not 

 forced from a thinking hearer the reserved right to hold views sustained by the 



