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3 6 IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 



them; not because their verity is testified by portents 

 and wonders; but because his experience teaches him 

 that whenever he chooses to bring these convictions into 

 contact with their primary source, Nature whenever 

 he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment and 

 to observation Nature will confirm them. The man 



| of science has learned to believe in justification, not by 



'; faith, but by verification. 



Thus, without for a moment pretending to despise 

 the practical results of the improvement of natural 

 knowledge, and its beneficial influence on material civili- 

 zation, it must, I think, be admitted that the great 

 ideas, some of which I have indicated, and the ethical 

 spirit which I have endeavoured to sketch, in the few 

 moments which remained at my disposal, constitute the 

 real and permanent significance of natural knowledge. 

 If these ideas be destined, as I believe they are, to 

 be more and more 'firmly established as the world grows 

 older; if that spirit be fated, as I believe it is, to extend 

 itself into all departments of human thought, and to 

 become co-extensive with the range of knowledge; if, 

 as our race approaches its maturity, it discovers, as I 

 believe it will, that there is but one kind of knowledge 



j and but one method^f acquiring it; then we, wfacTare 

 still children, may justly feel it our highest duty to 

 recognize the advisableness of improving natural knowl- 

 edge, and so to aid ourselves and our successors in 

 their course towards the noble goal which lies before 

 mankind. 



