326 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
any of us, although in their case the quest was not successful. The 
life of Origen was one long yearning for a full survey of the temple 
of truth as it rose in splendour "before his mind. Descartes even 
turned away from all systems and started from the minimum of 
data, that, unfettered by prejudice, he might know and hold only 
what is true and in every guise, even though it cost him serious 
social sacrifices. Spinoza was a martyr to his simple passion for 
truth. Newton ranged through the realms of space animated by 
the same feeling j and Kant gazed and gazed into the most subtle 
intricacies of being, and observed and noted, with penetration, 
acumen, and patience — never perhaps, except in the great Aristotle, 
surpassed — that, if possible, he might know what was deepest and 
truest in knowledge. There are in every age the slaves of preju- 
dice, indolence, and superstition, who, by their ignorant clamour 
against what is new and unfamiliar, and their unreasoned defence 
of what they hold, are, in fact, unwittingly the enemies of truth ; 
and it is chiefly perhaps because the more intelligent advocacy of 
Science stands out in contrast with such procedure that more is 
claimed for it than history will justify. Let us, however, not be 
unjust. Men who ignorantly hold what is provably false may, 
while holding it in belief of its being true, be passionately devoted 
to truth ; and men who hold to be true what they cannot help so 
holding, because of the demonstration of it, may submit in intel- 
lect, but wish it were otherwise. A recognition of truth is not 
identical with a passion for truth, and a passion for truth is quite 
consistent with holding error. Nor ought we to confound a special 
interest in ascertaining facts of a particular class and their relation 
one to another with a general love of truth, as truth, apart from 
those particular facts. The idiosyncracies of one man may induce 
in him a passion for statistical facts, of another for geological facts, 
of another for historical facts, and of another for mental facts. 
The hunger of each of these will be unappeasable, and he will be 
loyal to their increase and their pointing. It would be invidious 
to select one as a paragon of excellence. Truth is wider than all 
our Physical Sciences, and he is loyal to truth who accepts all that 
is clear to his own consciousness, be it physical, mental, or moral ; 
and recognizing it as the law of life conforms his conduct to it. 
Happily the love of truth is a passion with many who, through 
circumstances, are not adepts in scientific investigation. 
The tenor of what I have said applies also to the tendency of 
