XV. 
THE STRUGGLE FOR REALITIES. 
Ir is said that every tie in the Panama Railway cost 
a man his life. Whether this be true or not, it may 
serve as an illustration of the progress 
DHE PERE ae of human knowledge. Every step in the 
truth. ‘ z 
advance of science has cost the life of a 
man. And this price of truth has been paid in two dif- 
ferent ways. It may take a lifetime of the severest 
labour to find out a new fact. No truth comes to man 
unless he asks for it; and it takes years of patience and 
devotion to ask of Nature even one new question. He 
is already a master in science who can suggest a new 
experiment. 
In the second place, the truth-seeker has had to 
struggle for his physical life. Each acquisition of 
truth has been resisted by the full force of the inertia 
of satisfaction with preconceived ideas. Just as a new 
thought comes to us with a shock which rouses the re- 
sistance of our personal conservatism, so a new idea is 
met and repelled by the conservatism of society. 
And as each individual in his own secret heart be- 
lieves himself in some degree the subject of the favour 
of the mysterious unseen powers, so 
does society in all the ages find a mys- 
tic or divine warrant for its own attitude 
toward life or action, whatever that may be. 
366 
The mystic 
sanction. 
