76 THE ARCHAIC MAYA INSCRIPTIONS. 



It may be thought by some that the showing made is not sufficient to establish my 

 theory, or even to justify its announcement. Perhaps it is not, but I am content to 

 rest under any suspicion of unsound judgment that may be evoked by it until such 

 time as fuller knowledge shall bring my sure vindication. It is by such ventures only 

 that we can hope to make progress. There can be no advancement in holding safely 

 to gained knowledge. The fact of to-day was only a theory yesterday, and the theory 

 of to-day may be a fact to-morrow. So, wherever conjecture points with a reasonable 

 aim, we should go ; for, though in ninety-nine cases it may prove to be but a rainbow 

 chase, in the hundredth we may find the bag of gold. The instances in which a trial- 

 balance, as it were, can be got on any character or set of characters are so few that not 

 a single one of them should be scorned. This is one of the best I know. It is not 

 that the numerative value of the month symbols is of so much importance in itself, as 

 that, if my theory be correct, it helps to demonstrate that a mathematical plan under- 

 lay all Maya symbolism and furnishes an infallible test of the value of a considerable 

 number of characters. 



