THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 351 
quired during the life of the individual is an indispens- 
able axiom of the monistic doctrine of evolution. Those 
who with Weismann and Galton deny this, entirely ex- 
clude thereby the possibility of any formative influence 
of the outer world upon organic form.” Here we may 
ask: Who knows that there is any such formative influ- 
ence? What do we know of this or any other subject 
beyond what in our investigations we find to be true? 
When was monism a subject of special revelation, and 
with what credentials does it come, that one of the 
greatest controversies in modern science should be set- 
tled by its simple word? 
The great bulk of the arguments in favour of the 
heredity of acquired characters, as well as most of those 
in favour of the opposed dogma of the unchanged conti- 
nuity of the germ plasm, are based on some supposed 
logical necessity of philosophy. All such arguments are 
valueless in the light of fact. Desmarest’s suggestion to 
the contending advocates of Neptunism and Plutonism 
was “Go and see.’’ When they had seen the action of 
water and the action of heat, the contest was over, for 
argument and contention had vanished in the face of 
fact. To believe without foundation is to discredit 
knowledge. Such “confessions of faith” on Haeckel’s 
part lead one to doubt whether in his 
zeal to delieve he had ever known what it 
is to know. Greater than the courage of 
one’s convictions may be the courage of patience where 
convictions are not yet attainable. 
“ Science,” says Richard T. Colburn, “does not con- 
cern itself with teleological suppositions ; that is to say, 
it is reluctant to resort to any of them to explain the 
observed cosmos, and prefers to listen in neutral atti- 
tude to the rival philosophies—theism, manicheism, 
atheism, monism, spiritism, or materialism—but it is at 
; 23 : 
The courage of 
patience. 
