What is Truth? [pp. 506-535]

530 What is Trutlh? [July,
rial world. At first all is darkness, and nothing is seen. There
is no knowledge; because while there are objects innumerable
close by, and the sense of sight is present and vigorous, tlhere
is no medium through which they can be discerned. The benighted traveler is lost, and gropes around in vain to find
where he is. He may feel something touching him; but even
this he cannot recognize. Yet, as the few faint rays of light
reveal the outlines, he sees the distorted shapes, but cannot
comprehend anything around him. Gradually, however. the
eye of day opens, and his intelligence expands with the increasing light. He determines the larger objects with accuracy, and traces the more minute. And when the full flood of
light is spread by the risen sun, all is so clear that he takes in
at a glance the entire panorama which was around him before,
but of which he had no conception. This capacity for first
truths is not confined to any one department of knowledge,
and is everywhere amenable to precisely the same laws of
growth. It must, however, be borne in mind, that the growth
wvill be in the department in which the knowledge is gained.
Hence the culture of pure intellect will not necessarily enable
the moral sense to gain new truths; neither will the development of this attribute insure mastery by the reasoning power.
These may, and often do, act and react on each other; but
they may also be cultivated in isolation, or at one another's
expense. But in precisely the degree that they are respectively cultured will be their capacity in their several spheres to
receive new truths, and these in time become primary and
fundamental to further growth. It may be asked, What, then,
constitutes a first truth, and wherein does this differ from other information clearly apprehended by the mind? As soon as
an idea becomes so clear that it is spontaneously accepted, and
requires no explanation or proof-nay, rather, is obscured
thereby-it is a first truth to that order of capacity and culture
which so receives it. And those conceptions which so cornmend themselves to the universal acceptation of cultured people, are, by common consent, classified by themselves. But
it is evident that their subjective nature, as well as their number, is regulated by a sliding scale. For if the power of the
mind were greatly enlarged, not only would their number be
increased, but their clearness also. And even the most funda