CHAPTER II

TRUTH AND TESTIMONY

The first and last thing that is demanded of genius is love of truth. Goethe.

There is no lie in Nature; no discords in the revelations

of science, in the laws of the Universe. C. Kingsley. Nothing great in science has ever been done by men, whatever their powers, in whom the Divine afflatus of the truth-seeker was wanting. Huxley.

The greatest and noblest pleasure which men can have in this world is to discover new truths; and the next is to shake off old prejudices. Frederick the Great. New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;

They must upward still and onward who would keep abreast of truth. J. R. Lowell.

We cannot command veracity at will; the power of seeing and reporting truly is a form of health that has to be delicately guarded. The penalty of untruth is untruth. George Eliot.

If God held enclosed in His right hand all truth, and in His left simply the ever-moving impulse towards truth, although with the condition that I should eternally err, and said to me, Choose!" I should humbly bow before His left hand, and say, " Father, give! Pure truth is for Thee alone." G. E. Lessing.

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DURING the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Royal Society in 1912, a commemorative service was held in the ancient Abbey of Westminster, and the Right Rev. the Dean of Westminster, Dr. H. E. Ryle, delivered

a short address, taking for his text the words: "Truth abideth, and is strong for ever, she liveth and conquereth for evermore Blessed be the God of truth And all the people then shouted, and said, Great is truth and strong above all things" (I. Esdras, iv. 38, 40, 41).

The familiar proverb, Magna est veritas, et praevalebit is a slightly altered rendering of this text; and no more appropriate inspiration than it provides could be found for an address to an assembly of men of science. For the love of truth is the chief characteristic of the scientific mind.

It is the man of science, eager to have his every opinion regenerated, his every idea rationalised, by drinking at the fountain of fact, and devoting all the energies of his life to the cult of truth, not as he understands it, but as he does not understand it, that ought properly to be called a philosopher. To an earlier age knowledge was power-merely that and nothing more—to us it is life and the summum bonum. C. S. Peirce.

In the pursuit of truth the man of science spends his days; and for the defence of truth he is prepared to stand against the world. From his earliest instruction in the laboratory or the field to the end of his life, the student of science is learning that by nothing but faithful observation and truthful record can a satisfactory conclusion be reached. Regard for truth becomes part of his nature, and the investigations which lead to it purify his life. Read the biography of any man who gained distinction by his studies of Nature, and you will find that he valued truthfulness above all other qualities of a scientific mind. "There is," said Lord Kelvin, one thing I feel strongly in respect to investigation in physical or chemical laboratories-it leaves no room for shady, doubtful distinctions between truth, halftruth, whole falsehood. In the laboratory everything tested or tried is found true or not."

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A truthful mind is necessary for the discovery of truth in Nature. There is often a vast difference between the result an investigator expects to find and what he does obtain, but he must put his hopes aside and follow the new light if he is to be a worthy contributor to scientific knowledge. By this method alone are the conclusions and principles reached which form the refined gold of science. Advance is made by the study of cases which cannot be embraced by a general principle, by the possession of an eye to detect exceptions and of a mind willing to examine them instead of putting them aside because they are not in harmony with pre-conceived ideas.

A particular characteristic of Charles Darwin was the receptive mind with which he faced Nature, and the power of seeing exactly how to deal with variations from a general rule. Sir Francis Darwin relates that his father had a favourite gardener, to whom he used to predict the result of an experiment. When, as often happened, the contrary result came out, it was only natural that the gardener should be pleased. On the other hand, Darwin, though he was disappointed, would say as he left the green-house, "The little beasts are doing just what I did not want them to do." He was not the least upset and very often this type of failure heralded quite a new discovery. His love of truth enabled him immediately to abandon his own hypotheses when they ceased to be supported by observation, and to proceed to inquire into the cause of the unlooked-for result.

Exceptions to rules are welcomed by a scientific investigator not only because the rules have been tested by them and found wanting, but also because they show that there is still further knowledge to be gained. In

this respect the attitude of the man of science differs from that of ordinary life; for most people instinctively cherish convictions based upon experience of a few cases or conditions and are adroit in avoiding evidence contrary to what they wish to believe. They cannot understand the habit of mind which looks upon all truth as relative and temporary, and rejoices at the disclosure of a fact that refuses to fall within the limits of an accepted principle. It may be impossible for human intelligence to comprehend absolute truth, but it is possible to observe Nature with an unbiassed mind and to bear truthful testimony of things seen.]

To thine ownself be true;

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man. Shakespeare.

Nature," once remarked Goethe to a friend; "Nature knows no trifling; she is always sincere, always serious, always stern; she is always in the right, and the errors and mistakes are invariably ours." N. one realises this more fully than the scientific experimenter or observer. He looks at Nature's countenance, and as a sworn witness before the tribunal of reality, testifies to what is revealed to him. Upon him is the responsibility of recording exactly what he sees, and by his gaze alone can that knowledge be obtained which will subdue Nature to the rule of the human intellect. Much that he sees may not be understood, but unless he has the love of truth his vision will be distorted. Hear what a great physicist says of the essential attributes of a scientific observer and the conquests to which they lead:

I value in a scientific mind, most of all, that love of truth, that care in its pursuit, and that humility of mind which makes the possibility of error always present more than any other

quality. This is the mind which has built up modern science to its present perfection, which has laid one stone upon the other with such care that it to-day offers to the world the most complete monument to human reason. This is the mind which is destined to govern the world in the future, and to solve the problems pertaining to politics and humanity as well as to inanimate nature. It is the only mind which appreciates the imperfections of the human reason, and is thus careful to guard against them. It is the only mind that values the truth as it should be valued and ignores all personal feeling in its pursuit. Prof. H. A. Rowland.

This is the type of mind a scientific training is intended to cultivate; and it is easier for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than it is to enter into the kingdom of science without it. We use the simile with all reverence in this connection, because science is an uplifting gospel as well as a revelation. Huxley described himself as almost a fanatic for the sanctity of truth." Truthfulness, in his eyes, was the cardinal virtue without which neither science nor society could possess stability. The motive of all scientific work is to arrive at the truth, and Huxley's life was the apotheosis of this passion for veracity.

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If absolute loyalty to truth, involving complete self-abnegation in face of the evidence, be the ideal aim of the scientific inquirer, there have been few men in whom that ideal has been so perfectly realised as in Huxley. If ever he were tempted by some fancied charm of speculation to swerve a hair's breadth from the strict line of fact, the temptation was promptly slaughtered and made no sign. For intellectual integrity he was a spotless Sir Galahad. I believe there was nothing in life which he dreaded so much as the sin of allowing his reason to be hoodwinked by personal predilections, or whatever Francis Bacon would have called idols of the cave." John Fiske.

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The love of truth is the beginning and the end of wisdom. It is with the astronomer as he searches the skies from his watch tower and it animates the naturalist as he scrutinises muds gathered from the ocean bed; it