Clancy-—Floundering in Modernity, 
53 
spirit of the pioneer in things of the mind has found its freest 
expression in the realm of physical science. Professor James 
Harvey Eobinson in his much-discussed book, ‘^The Mind in the 
Making,” says* While we have permitted our free thought in 
the natural sciences to transform man^s old world, we allow our 
schools and even our universities to continue to incalculate beliefs 
and ideals which may or may not have been appropriate to the 
past, but which are clearly anachronisms now. For, Hhe social 
science’ taught in our schools is, it would appear, an orderly pre¬ 
sentation of the conventional proprieties, rather than a summons 
to grapple with the novel and disconcerting facts that surround 
us on every side.” 
Scholarship has apparently been at its best only where the 
processes of thought do not concern themselves with human motives 
or become intertwined with the heart-strings; if they are so in¬ 
volved, argument must make assurance doubly sure and take a bond 
of fate. Not that our scholarship is ever in the position of abject 
fear as it faces possible conclusions, but too often the wish is father 
of the thought, or the bias of heredity and temperament is an 
unconsciously determining influence. Who is there of us who 
would not surrender in a moment and without a pang Newton’s 
law of gravitation or the solar system of Copernicus ? In the lab¬ 
oratory of the true scientist there is never a fear for what lies 
at the bottom of the crucible when the test is over. Were the 
evidence to be found there to mean the denial of the hope of 
immortality, there would be no moment of hesitation, nor a quiver 
of the eye-lid. Is not truth in its purity, without compromise, 
goal sufficient for man or God? Yet we pursue with trepidation 
the paths that explore the fields of humanistic scholarship and 
cling with hazy-eyed and fond devotion to the formulae of the past. 
More than that, most of us^—unconsciously, to be sure—are special 
pleaders. We have a cause to promote, which is not truth but a 
particular brand of truth in which we have come to believe. The 
churchman today, for example, is far too likely to start with his 
conclusions and work back to his premises. Thus he is frequently 
driven to unconvincing and even specious argument to support 
positions rapidly becoming untenable. His cosmic philosophy will 
not tolerate the conception of a Godless universe or a denial of the 
immortality of the soul. And the radical thinker, on his part, 
is likely to be carried away by things in general—^in art, literature, 
politics, and religion; he loses his mental balance, becomes a 
