What is Truth? [pp. 506-535]

What is Truth?
Repeated failures in discovering the secrets of nature have
made scientists humbler in their own sphere, so that when they
come to an apparent contradiction in natural phenomena, they
do not, for an instant, suppose this discrepancy is real, but
rather that it results from their imperfect deductions. Hence,
they seek some higher law by which the seemingly discordant
results can be harmonized, or struggle with patient experiment to discover whether nature will verify their facts. However the issue may be, they always think the fault lies with
themselves, or arises from the necessary limitations of human
knowledge. They may well remember the multitude of theories that have been paraded before the world in all the pride
of confident ignorance, yet had soon to be buried out of sight
as an untimely birth. Each of the sciences is the record of a
struggle up through false theories, many of them now so ridiculous that it looks like a caricature of the human intellect to
believe they were ever advocated. These facts ought to make
scientists respectful in their attitude toward revealed religion,
and cause them for shame to stifle their exultation at thepretended periodical collapse of that revelation towhich the world
owes all its liberty and material progress-at least until their
own bantlings cease "mewling and puking in their nurse's
arms.
The greatest achievements in scientific research have been
made by those who admitted no conflict with revealed Truth.
The pioneers in every department of investigation have been
those who recognized the universe to be the handiwork of God,
and who explored every part of nature with the feeling of true
children disporting themselves in their Father's house. His
revealed Truth becomes more clear because it is mirrored in
the material world. For since the Divine countenance is visible in all the works of creation, and there is but one kind of
truth, its different parts testify to each other. Cleanthes says,
in his Hymn to Zeus,* "There is but one reason which pervades all things, and by which all are governed." And Virgil
embodies this doctrine when he says:
"Spiritus intus alit; totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscit."t
Common sense must teach any unprejudiced mind that if
* Line 20. t AEn. VI., 726-7.
EJuly,