50 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 
them. This is so universal and far-reaching a principle that Iam sure 
I will be pardoned for illustrating it in the homeliest and tritest fashion. 
I will do so by means of the shield with the diverse sides, giving the 
story and construing it, however, in my own way. There is, appar- 
ently, no limit to the amount of rich marrow of truth that may be 
extracted from these dry bones of popular proverbs and fables by 
patient turning and gnawing. 
We all remember, then, the famous dispute concerning the shield, 
with its sides of different colors, which we shall here call white and 
black. We all remember how, after vain attempts to discover the 
truth by dispute, it was agreed to try the scientific method of investi- 
gation. We all remember the surprising result. Both parties to the 
dispute were right and both were wrong. Each was right from his 
point of view, but wrong in excluding the other point of view. Each 
was right in what he asserted, and each wrong in what he denied. 
And the complete truth was the combination of the partial truths and 
the elimination of the partial errors. But we must not make the mis- 
take of supposing that truth consists in compromise. There.is an old 
adage that truth lies in the middle between antagonistic extremes. 
But it seems to us that this is the place of safety, not of truth. This is 
the favorite adage, therefore, of the timid man, the time-server, the 
fence-man, not the truth-seeker. Suppose there had been on the 
occasion mentioned above one of these fence-philosophers. He would 
have said: ‘‘These disputants are equally intelligent and equally 
-valiant. One side says the shield is white, the other that it is black; 
now truth lies in the middle; therefore, I conclude the shield is gray or 
neutral tint, or a sort of pepper-and-salt.”” Do we not see that he is 
the only man who has no truth in him? No; truth is no hetero- 
geneous mixture of opposite extremes, but a stereoscopic combination 
of two surface views into one solid reality. 
Now, the same is true of all vexed questions, and I have given this 
trite fable again only to apply it to the case in hand. 
There are three possible views concerning the origin of organic 
forms whether individual or specific. Two of these are opposite 
and mutually excluding; the third combining and reconciling. For 
example, take the individual. There are three theories concerning 
the origin of the individual. The first is that of the pious child who 
thinks that he was made very much as he himself makes his dirt-pies; 
the second is that of the street-gamin, or of Topsy, who says: ‘I was 
not made at all, I growed’’; the third is that of most intelligent 
