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JOUENAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
I have the most profound faith. It is the desire, the intense, the 
insatiable desire, for truth. 
I do not mean to imply that this desire for truth is new, any 
more than I imply that doubt is new. But I think the advance of 
intelligence is decidedly in the direction of a greater and a grow- 
ing demand for proof. As knowledge accumulates, and education 
progresses, the mind is not content with mere subterfuges for 
truth. A truth is not accepted unless it can defy doubt, and 
doubt is the test of truth, as aqua vitce is the test for gold. 
Where a doubt can harbour, we cannot say that we have arrived 
at truth ; and thus it is that doubt becomes a positive quality, by 
acting as a spur to the further and further investigation of every- 
thing that is capable of becoming a subject for the operations of 
the human understanding. 
That which I have described as an intense, insatiable desire for 
truth, is certainly nothing new, nor is it peculiar to the present 
time. But if it assumes a different aspect, if this desire for truth 
manifests itself in new forms and shapes as the march of intellect 
advances, it is very important for us, who wish to keep pace with 
the times, not to be blind to the signs of the times, and to watch 
with vigilance "the changes that come o'er the spirit of our 
di-eams." The progress of intellect is certainly at an ever-in- 
creasing rate. We cannot measure it as we have measured the 
force of gravitation ; we cannot say that its speed increases at a 
rate equivalent to the inverse square of the distance ; but we can 
clearly perceive that it proceeds faster and still faster with an 
ever-accumulating impetus, and that as the pace accelerates new 
signs present themselves to mark the path which the mind has 
traversed. 
What are the signs which present themselves to us now, and 
how are we, as members of this Institution, to follow the track — 
to hold our own in the race which is ever becoming faster and 
faster ? 
The search after truth is conducted, as wj proceed, with greater 
vigilance, with more minute care, on a more systematic plan of 
observation, with more freedom, and by an always increasing 
number of pursuers. It is embarrassed by less bigotry, by fewer 
prejudices, and by a fast decreasing number of obstacles which 
form the defences of our old habits of thought. The whole field 
of intellectual inquiry is more open than ever to the scientific 
