68 The Course of Nature. [January, 
idea of weighing the arguments on both sides with entire 
indifference to the result is one which he cannot be expected 
to receive with favour, or even to readily comprehend as 
received by others. His idea of truth is symbolised in the 
pure marble statue which must be protected from contact 
with profane hands, and whose value arises from its beauty 
of form and the excellence of the ideas which it embodies. 
He therefore looks upon those who attack it with feelings not 
unlike those of the keeper of the statue upon a chemist 
who refuses to see anything in the statue except a lump of 
carbonate of calcium of peculiar form, and who wants to 
handle it, weigh it, determine its specific gravity and its cohe- 
sive power, and test its substance with acids. The corre- 
sponding ideaof thescientific investigator is symbolised by the 
iron-clad turret, which cannot be accepted until it has proved 
its invulnerability. Instead, therefore, of being protected 
from violence as if it were a product of the fine arts, vio- 
lence is invited. Its weak points are sought out by eyes 
intent on discovering them, and are exposed to the fire of 
every logical weapon which can be brought to bear upon 
them. A scientific theory may thus be completely de- 
molished; it may prove so far from perfect that its author 
is glad to withdraw it for repairs or reconstruction ; or it 
may he hammered into an entirely new shape. But how- 
ever completely it may stand the fire, it maintains its posi- 
tion as a scientific theory only by being always in the field 
ready to challenge every new comer, and to meet the fire of 
every faCt which seems to militate'! against it. A count- 
less host of theories have thus been demolished and for- 
gotten with the advance of knowledge, but those which 
remain, having stood the fire of generations, can show us a 
guarantee of their truthfulness which would not be possible 
under any other plan of dealing with them. 
As a consequence of this way of viewing theories, the 
scientific man recognises no such attribute as orthodoxy in 
his doctrines. There is nothing at all which he says 
you must believe to be true as a condition of scientific 
recognition. There may, indeed, be many propositions to 
doubt which would indicate extraordinary incredulity, or 
downright folly, or even insanity, and he might, therefore, 
regard a sceptic as possessing a pitiful feebleness of intellect, 
and in consequence, refuse to listen to him ; but he would 
refuse, not because the man disbelieved something which 
was undoubtedly true, but because he was not worth listen- 
ing to. Perhaps the point which I am striving to make 
dear may be most readily grasped by the reflection that 
