348 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



or hypothetical, and these still more so from that 

 which we already know to be. The limits must 

 not extend too far, neither should they be too 

 narrow. It is by observation and experiment that 

 real progress is to be attained. Idealism does not 

 affect the question, although Idealism be true. 



Each newly acquired fact, though only an idea, 

 must be such that it may safely be deposited in 

 its place like a brick, to stand for all time as a 

 part and a support of the great fabric of ideas 

 which generations yet to come wUl help to build, 

 but which it may never be our lot to accom- 

 plish. The ideal of research is to secure at each 

 successive step that which will remain, inde- 

 pendently of all place and time, as something 

 permanent and something real, something for those 

 who are to continue our work to take their 

 stand upon, as firmly as on the solid ground of 

 nature that we trod, though it is only an idea too, 

 in their endeavour to reach those heights of Olympus 

 and Parnassus from which Humanity, seeing the 

 relations of things, may yet perceive with greater 

 clearness the pure light of Truth. The scaflfolding 

 of our hypotheses may then be removed while the 

 stone and marble will remain in their architectural 

 beauty of form for all ages to behold, not merely 

 as the symbol, but as the idea of what IS. 



