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As I Have Already Urged, The Practice Of That Which Is Ethically Best - What We Call Goodness Or Virtue - Involves A Course Of Conduct Which, In All Respects, Is Opposed To That Which Leads To Success In The Cosmic Struggle For Existence. In Place Of Ruthless Selfassertion It Demands Self-restraint; In Place Of Thrusting Aside, Or Treading Down, All Competitors, It Requires That The Individual Shall Not Merely Respect , But Shall Help His Fellows. It Repudiates The Gladiatorial Theory Of Existence. Laws And Moral Precepts Are Directed To The End Of Curbing The Cosmic Process.

-Thomas Huxley

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As I Have Already

Thomas Huxley

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As I Have Already Urged, The Practice Of That Which Is Ethically Best - What We Call Goodness Or Virtue - Involves A Course Of Conduct Which, In All Respects, Is Opposed To That Which Leads To Success In The Cosmic Struggle For Existence. In Place Of Ruthless Selfassertion It Demands Self-restraint; In Place Of Thrusting Aside, Or Treading Down, All Competitors, It Requires That The Individual Shall Not Merely Respect , But Shall Help His Fellows. It Repudiates The Gladiatorial Theory Of Existence. Laws And Moral Precepts Are Directed To The End Of Curbing The Cosmic Process.

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If Every Man Possessed Everything He Wanted, And No One Had The Power To Interfere With Such Possession; Or If No Man Desired Thatwhich Could Damage His Fellow-man, Justice Would Have No Part To Play In The Universe.

Science Is Nothing, But Trained And Organized Common Sense.

The Bible Has Been The Magna Charta Of The Poor And Of The Oppressed.

I Have Never Been Able To Understand Why Pigeon-shooting At Hurlingham Should Be Refined And Polite, While A Rat-killing Match In Whitechapel Is Low.

Irrationally Held Truths May Be More Harmful Than Reasoned Errors.

For These Two Years I Have Been Gravitating Towards Your Doctrines, And Since The Publication Of Your Primula Paper With Accelerated Velocity. By About This Time Next Year I Expect To Have Shot Past You, And To Find You Pitching Into Me For Being More Darwinian Than Yourself. However, You Have Set Me Going, And Must Just Take The Consequences, For I Warn You I Will Stop At No Point So Long As Clear Reasoning Will Take Me Further.

Of The Few Innocent Pleasures Left To Men Past Middle Life, The Jamming Of Common Sense Down The Throats Of Fools Is Perhaps The Keenest.

The Secret Of Genius Is To Carry The Spirit Of Childhood Into Maturity.

Time, Whose Tooth Gnaws Away Everything Else, Is Powerless Against Truth.

The Student Of Nature Wonders The More And Is Astonished The Less, The More Conversant He Becomes With Her Operations; But Of All The Perennial Miracles She Offers To His Inspection, Perhaps The Most Worthy Of Admiration Is The Development Of A Plant Or Of An Animal From Its Embryo.

Science Commits Suicide When It Adopts A Creed.

The Supernatural Is Being Swept Out Of The Universe In The Flood Of New Knowledge Of What Is Natural. It Will Soon Be As Impossible For An Intelligent, Educated Man Or Woman To Believe In A God As It Is Now To Believe That Earth Is Flat, That Flies Can Be Spontaneously Generated, That Disease Is A Divine Punishment, Or That Death Is Always Due To Witchcraft.

I Have No Faith, Very Little Hope, And As Much Charity As I Can Afford.

Thoughtfulness For Others, Generosity, Modesty, And Self-respect Are The Qualities Which Make A Real Gentleman Or Lady.

We Are Prone To See What Lies Behind Our Eyes, Rather Than What Apprears Before Them.

The Great End Of Life Is Not Knowledge But Action.

If A Man Cannot Do Brain Work Without Stimulants Of Any Kind, He Had Better Turn To Hand Work It Is An Indication On Nature's Part That She Did Not Mean Him To Be A Head Worker.

The Ultimate Court Of Appeal Is Observation And Experiment... Not Authority.

The Known Is Finite, The Unknown Infinite; Intellectually We Stand On An Islet In The Midst Of An Illimitable Ocean Of Inexplicability. Our Business In Every Generation Is To Reclaim A Little More Land, To Add Something To The Extent And The Solidity Of Our Possessions.

It Is A Popular Delusion That The Scientific Enquirer Is Under An Obligation Not To Go Beyond Generalisation Of Observed Facts...but Anyone Who Is Practically Acquainted With Scientific Work Is Aware That Those Who Refuse To Go Beyond The Facts, Rarely Get As Far.

The Man Of Science Has Learned To Believe In Justification, Not By Faith, But By Verification.

When I Reached Intellectual Maturity And Began To Ask Myself Whether I Was An Atheist, A Theist, Or A Pantheist; A Materialist, Or An Idealist; A Christian, Or A Freethinker; I Found That The More I Learned And Reflected, The Less Ready Was The Answer; Until, At Last, I Came To The Conclusion That I Had Neither Art Nor Part With Any Of These Denominations, Except The Last.

It Sounds Paradoxical To Say The Attainment Of Scientific Truth Has Been Effected, To A Great Extent, By The Help Of Scientific Errors.

I Have Endeavoured To Show That No Absolute Structural Line Of Demarcation, Wider Than That Between The Animals Which Immediately Succeed Us In The Scale, Can Be Drawn Between The Animal World And Ourselves; And I May Add The Expression Of My Belief That The Attempt To Draw A Physical Distinction Is Equally Futile, And That Even The Highest Faculties Of Feeling And Of Intellect Begin To Germinate In Lower Forms Of Life.

The Only Freedom I Care About Is The Freedom To Do Right; The Freedom To Do Wrong I Am Ready To Part With On The Cheapest Terms To Anyone Who Will Take It Of Me

For Myself I Say Deliberately, It Is Better To Have A Millstone Tied Round The Neck And Be Thrown Into The Sea Than To Share The Enterprises Of Those To Whom The World Has Turned, And Will Turn, Because They Minister To Its Weaknesses And Cover Up The Awful Realities Which It Shudders To Look At.

To Quarrel With The Uncertainty That Besets Us In Intellectual Affairs Would Be About As Reasonable As To Object To Live One's Life With Due Thought For The Morrow Because No Man Can Be Sure He Will Alive An Hour Hence.

The Very Existence Of Society Depends On The Fact That Every Member Of It Tacitly Admits He Is Not The Exclusive Possessor Of Himself, And That He Admits The Claim Of The Polity Of Which He Forms A Part, To Act, To Some Extent, As His Master.

The Sceptics End In The Infidelity Which Asserts The Problem To Be Insoluble, Or In The Atheism Which Denies The Existence Of Any Orderly Progress And Governance Of Things: The Men Of Genius Propound Solutions Which Grow Into Systems Of Theology Or Of Philosophy, Or Veiled In Musical Language Which Suggests More Than It Asserts, Take The Shape Of The Poetry Of An Epoch.

It Is Wrong For A Man To Say That He Is Certain Of The Objective Truth Of Any Proposition Unless He Can Produce Evidence Which Logically Justifies That Certainty.

Objective Truth

As If To Demonstrate, By A Striking Example, The Impossibility Of Erecting Any Cerebral Barrier Between Man And The Apes, Nature Has Provided Us, In The Latter Animals, With An Almost Complete Series Of Gradations From Brains Little Higher Than That Of A Rodent, To Brains Little Lower Than That Of Man.

If Individuality Has No Play, Society Does Not Advance; If Individuality Breaks Out Of All Bounds, Society Perishes.

To A Clear Eye The Smallest Fact Is A Window Through Which The Infinite May Be Seen.

Of Moral Purpose I See No Trace In Nature. That Is An Article Of Exclusively Human Manufacture And Very Much To Our Credit.

The Chess-board Is The World, The Pieces Are The Phenomena Of The Universe, The Rules Of The Game Are What We Call The Laws Of Nature. The Player On The Other Side Is Hidden From Us.

History Warns Us That It Is The Customary Fate Of New Truths To Begin As Heresies And To End As Superstitions.

Perhaps The Most Valuable Result Of All Education Is The Ability To Make Yourself Do The Thing You Have To Do, When It Ought To Be Done, Whether You Like It Or Not. It Is The First Lesson That Ought To Be Learned And However Early A Man's Training Begins, It Is Probably The Last Lesson That He Learns Thoroughly.

As To Sagacity, I Should Say That His Judgement Respecting The Warmest Place And The Softest Cushion In A Room Is Infallible, His Punctuality At Meal Times Is Admirable, And His Pertinacity In Jumping On People's Shoulders Till They Give Him Some Of The Best Of What Is Going, Indicates Great Firmness.

I Am Content With Nothing, Restless And Ambitious... And I Despise Myself For The Vanity, Which Formed Half The Stimulus To My Exertions. Oh Would That I Were One Of Those Plodding Wise Fools Who Having Once Set Their Hand To The Plough Go On Nothing Doubting.

There Are Savages Without God In Any Proper Sense Of The Word, But None Without Ghosts.

Next To Being Right In This World, The Best Of All Things Is To Be Clearly And Definitely Wrong, Because You Will Come Out Somewhere. If You Go Buzzing About Between Right And Wrong, Vibrating And Fluctuating, You Come Out Nowhere; But If You Are Absolutely And Thoroughly And Persistently Wrong, You Must, Some Of These Days, Have The Extreme Good Fortune Of Knocking Your Head Against A Fact, And That Sets You All Straight Again.

Of All The Senseless Babble I Have Ever Had Occasion To Read, The Demonstrations Of These Philosophers Who Undertake To Tell Us All About The Nature Of God Would Be The Worst, If They Were Not Surpassed By The Still Greater Absurdities Of The Philosophers Who Try To Prove That There Is No God.

Not Only Do I Disbelieve In The Need For Compensation, But I Believe That The Seeking For Rewards And Punishments Out Of This Lifeleads Men To A Ruinous Ignorance Of The Fact That Their Inevitable Rewards And Punishments Are Here.

As A Natural Process, Of The Same Character As The Development Of A Tree From Its Seed, Or Of A Fowl From Its Egg, Evolution Excludes Creation And All Other Kinds Of Supernatural Intervention.

Every Living Creature Commences Its Existence Under A Form Different From, And Simpler Than, That Which It Eventually Attains.

Regarded Anatomically, The Resemblances Between The Foot Of Man And The Foot Of The Gorilla Are Far More Striking And Important Than The Differences... Be The Differences Between The Hand And Foot Of Man And Those Of The Gorilla What They May The Differences Between Those Of The Gorilla And Those Of The Lower Apes Are Much Greater.

Science Is Nothing But Trained And Organized Common Sense Differing From The Latter Only As A Veteran May Differ From A Raw Recruit: And Its Methods Differ From Those Of Common Sense Only As Far As The Guardsman's Cut And Thrust Differ From The Manner In Which A Savage Wields His Club.

Education Is The Instruction Of The Intellect In The Laws Of Nature.

In Matters Of The Intellect, Do Not Pretend That Conclusions Are Certain Which Are Not Demonstrated Or Demonstrable. That I Take To Be The Agnostic Faith, Which If A Man Keep Whole And Undefiled, He Shall Not Be Ashamed To Look The Universe In The Face, Whatever The Future May Have In Store For Him.

... Our "physick" And "anatomy" Have Embraced Such Infinite Varieties Of Being, Have Laid Open Such New Worlds In Time And Space, Have Grappled, Not Unsuccessfully, With Such Complex Problems, That The Eyes Of Vesalius And Of Harvey Might Be Dazzled By The Sight Of The Tree That Has Grown Out Of Their Grain Of Mustard Seed.

The Antagonism Between Science And Religion, About Which We Hear So Much, Appears To Me To Be Purely Factitiousfabricated, On The One Hand, By Short-sighted Religious People Who Confound A Certain Branch Of Science, Theology, With Religion; And, On The Other, By Equally Short-sighted Scientific People Who Forget That Science Takes For Its Province Only That Which Is Susceptible Of Clear Intellectual Comprehension; And That, Outside The Boundaries Of That Province, They Must Be Content With Imagination, With Hope, And With Ignorance

That Mysterious Independent Variable Of Political Calculation, Public Opinion.

Freedom And Order Are Not Incompatible... Truth Is Strength... Free Discussion Is The Very Life Of Truth.

Men Can Intoxicate Themselves With Ideas As Effectually As With Alcohol Or With Bang And Produce, Be Dint Of Serious Thinking, Mental Conditions Hardly Distinguishable From Monomania.

And You Very Soon Find Out, If You Have Not Found It Out Before, That Patience And Tenacity Of Purpose Are Worth More Than Twice Their Weight Of Cleverness.

The Rung Of A Ladder Was Never Meant To Rest Upon.

Proclaim Human Equality As Loudly As You Like, Witless Will Serve His Brother.

The Question Of All Questions For Humanity, The Problem Which Lies Behind All Others And Is More Interesting Than Any Of Them, Is That Of The Determination Of Man's Place In Nature And His Relation To The Cosmos.

'infidel' Is A Term Of Reproach, Which Christians And Mohammedans, In Their Modesty, Agree To Apply To Those Who Differ From Them.

Friendship Involves Many Things But, Above All The Power Of Going Outside Oneself And Appreciating What Is Noble And Loving In Another.

The Medieval University Looked Backwards; It Professed To Be A Storehouse Of Old Knowledge. The Modern University Looks Forward, And Is A Factory Of New Knowledge.

Better Live A Crossing-sweeper Than Die And Be Made To Talk Twaddle By A "medium" Hired At A Guinea A Seance.

A Well-worn Adage Advises Those Who Set Out Upon A Great Enterprise To Count The Cost, Yet Some Of The Greatest Enterprises Have Succeeded Because The People Who Undertook Them Did Not Count The Cost.

No Delusion Is Greater Than The Notion That Method And Industry Can Make Up For Lack Of Mother-wit, Either In Science Or In Practical Life.

No One Can Help Another Very Much In These Crises Of Life; But Love And Sympathy Count For Something.

Science Has Fulfilled Her Function When She Has Ascertained And Enunciated Truth.

Life Is Like Walking Along A Crowded Street--there Always Seem To Be Fewer Obstacles To Getting Along On The Opposite Pavement--and Yet, If One Crosses Over, Matters Are Rarely Mended.

Perhaps No Order Of Mammals Presents Us With So Extraordinary A Series Of Gradations As This [step By Step, From Humans To Apes To Monkeys To Lemurs] - Leading Us Insensibly From The Crown And Summit Of The Animal Creation Down To Creatures, From Which There Is But A Step, As It Seems, To The Lowest, Smallest, And Least Intelligent Of The Placental Mammalia. It Is As If Nature Herself Had Forseen The Arrogance Of Man, And With Roman Severity Had Provided That His Intellect, By Its Very Triumphs, Should Call Into Prominence The Slaves, Admonishing The Conqueror That He Is But Dust.

We Live In A World Which Is Full Of Misery And Ignorance, And The Plain Duty Of Each And All Of Us Is To Try To Make The Little Corner He Can Influence Somewhat Less Miserable And Somewhat Less Ignorant Than It Was Before He Entered.

Protoplasm, Simple Or Nucleated, Is The Formal Basis Of All Life. It Is The Clay Of The Potter: Which, Bake It And Paint It As Hewill, Remains Clay, Separated By Artifice, And Not By Nature From The Commonest Brick Or Sun-dried Clod.

As I Have Already Urged, The Practice Of That Which Is Ethically Best - What We Call Goodness Or Virtue - Involves A Course Of Conduct Which, In All Respects, Is Opposed To That Which Leads To Success In The Cosmic Struggle For Existence. In Place Of Ruthless Selfassertion It Demands Self-restraint; In Place Of Thrusting Aside, Or Treading Down, All Competitors, It Requires That The Individual Shall Not Merely Respect , But Shall Help His Fellows. It Repudiates The Gladiatorial Theory Of Existence. Laws And Moral Precepts Are Directed To The End Of Curbing The Cosmic Process.

Extinguished Theologians Lie About The Cradle Of Every Science As The Strangled Snakes Beside That Of Hercules; And History Records That Whenever Science And Orthodoxy Have Been Fairly Opposed, The Latter Has Been Forced To Retire From The Lists, Bleeding And Crushed If Not Annihilated; Scotched, If Not Slain.

Unity Of Plan Everywhere Lies Hidden Under The Mask: Of Diversity Of Structure-the Complex Is Everywhere Evolved Out Of The Simple.

Misery Is A Match That Never Goes Out.

Every Great Advance In Natural Knowledge Has Involved The Absolute Rejection Of Authority.

Authority And Power

In Matters Of Intellect, Follow Your Reason As Far As It Will Take You, Without Regard For Any Other Consideration.

I Took Thought, And Invented What I Conceived To Be The Appropriate Title Of 'agnostic'.

Teach A Child What Is Wise, That Is Morality. Teach Him What Is Wise And Beautiful, That Is Religion!

And When You Cannot Prove That People Are Wrong, But Only That They Are Absurd, The Best Course Is To Let Them Alone.

The Vast Results Obtained By Science Are Won By No Mystical Faculties, By No Mental Processes Other Than Those Which Are Practicedby Every One Of Us, In The Humblest And Meanest Affairs Of Life. A Detective Policeman Discovers A Burglar From The Marks Made By His Shoe, By A Mental Process Identical With That By Which Cuvier Restored The Extinct Animals Of Montmartre From Fragments Of Their Bones.

Scientific Method

Genius As An Explosive Power Beats Gunpowder Hollow; And If Knowledge, Which Should Give That Power Guidance, Is Wanting, The Chances Are Not Small That The Rocket Will Simply Run Amuck Among Friends And Foes.

I Know No Study Which Is So Unutterably Saddening As That Of The Evolution Of Humanity, As It Is Set Forth In The Annals Of History. Out Of The Darkness Of Prehistoric Ages Man Emerges With The Marks Of His Lowly Origin Strong Upon Him. He Is A Brute, Only More Intelligent Than The Other Brutes, A Blind Prey To Impulses, Which As Often As Not Led Him To Destruction; A Victim To Endless Illusions, Which Make His Mental Existence A Terror And A Burden, And Fill His Physical Life With Barren Toil And Battle.

It Does Not Matter How Many Tumbles You Have In This Life, So Long As You Do Not Get Dirty When You Tumble; It Is Only The People Who Have To Stop To Be Washed And Made Clean, Who Must Necessarily Lose The Race. And I Can Assure You That There Is The Greatest Practical Benefit In Making A Few Failures Early In Life. You Learn That Which Is Of Inestimable Importance

I Do Not Say Think As I Think, But Think In My Way. Fear No Shadows, Least Of All In That Great Spectre Of Personal Unhappiness Which Binds Half The World To Orthodoxy.

A Man Has No Reason To Be Ashamed Of Having An Ape For His Grandfather. If There Were An Ancestor Whom I Should Feel Shame In Recalling It Would Rather Be A Man Who Plunges Into Scientific Questions With Which He Has No Real Acquaintance, Only To Obscure Them By An Aimless Rhetoric.

I Care Not What Subject Is Taught, If Only It Be Taught Well.

I Can Assure You That There Is The Greatest Practical Benefit In Making A Few Failures Early In Life. You Learn That Which Is Of Inestimable Importance That There Are A Great Many People In The World Who Are Just As Clever As You Are. You Learn To Put Your Trust, By And By, In An Economy And Frugality Of The Exercise Of Your Powers, Both Moral And Intellectual; And You Very Soon Find Out, If You Have Not Found It Out Before, That Patience And Tenacity Of Purpose Are Worth More Than Twice Their Weight Of Cleverness.

As For Your Doctrines I Am Prepared To Go To The Stake If Requisite ... I Trust You Will Not Allow Yourself To Be In Any Way Disgusted Or Annoyed By The Considerable Abuse & Misrepresentation Which Unless I Greatly Mistake Is In Store For You... And As To The Curs Which Will Bark And Yelp - You Must Recollect That Some Of Your Friends At Any Rate Are Endowed With An Amount Of Combativeness Which (though You Have Often & Justly Rebuked It) May Stand You In Good Stead - I Am Sharpening Up My Claws And Beak In Readiness.

That Which Endures Is Not One Or Another Association Of Living Forms, But The Process Of Which The Cosmos Is The Product, And Of Which These Are Among The Transitory Expressions.

God Give Me Strength To Face A Fact Though It Slay Me.

Learn What Is True In Order To Do What Is Right.

Natural Knowledge, Seeking To Satisfy Natural Wants, Has Found The Ideas Which Can Alone Still Spiritual Cravings. I Say That Natural Knowledge, In Desiring To Ascertain The Laws Of Comfort, Has Been Driven To Discover Those Of Conduct, And To Lay The Foundations Of A New Morality.

The Best Men Of The Best Epochs Are Simply Those Who Make The Fewest Blunders And Commit The Fewest Sins.

I Have Always Been, Am, And Propose To Remain A Mere Scholar. All That I Have Ever Proposed To Myself Is To Say, This And This I Have Learned; Thus And Thus Have I Learned It; Go Thou And Learn Better; But Do Not Thrust On My Shoulders The Responsibility For Your Own Laziness If You Elect To Take, On My Authority, Conclusions The Value Of Which You Ought To Have Tested For Yourself.

Ecclesiasticism In Science Is Only Unfaithfulness To Truth

No One Who Has Lived In The World As Long As You & I Have, Can Entertain The Pious Delusion That It Is Engineered Upon Principles Of Benevolence... The Cosmos Remains Always Beautiful And Profoundly Interesting In Every Corner-and If I Had As Many Lives As A Cat I Would Leave No Corner Unexplored.

Missionaries, Whether Of Philosophy Or Religion, Rarely Make Rapid Way, Unless Their Preachings Fall In With The Prepossessions Ofthe Multitude Of Shallow Thinkers, Or Can Be Made To Serve As A Stalking-horse For The Promotion Of The Practical Aims Of The Still Larger Multitude, Who Do Not Profess To Think Much, But Are Quite Certain They Want A Great Deal.

Agnosticism Simply Means That A Man Shall Not Say That He Knows Or Believes That For Which He Has No Grounds For Professing To Believe.

Whatever Part Of The Animal Fabric Whatever Series Of Muscles, Whatever Viscera Might Be Selected For Comparison The Result Would Be The Same The Lower Apes And The Gorilla Would Differ More Than The Gorilla And The Man.

There Is The Greatest Practical Benefit In Making A Few Failures Early In Life.

Sit Down Before Fact As A Little Child, Be Prepared To Give Up Every Conceived Notion, Follow Humbly Wherever And Whatever Abysses Nature Leads, Or You Will Learn Nothing.

Rome Is The One Great Spiritual Organisation Which Is Able To Resist And Must, As A Matter Of Life And Death, The Progress Of Science And Modern Civilization

It Is Far Better For A Man To Go Wrong In Freedom Than To Go Right In Chains.

It Is An Error To Imagine That Evolution Signifies A Constant Tendency To Increased Perfection. That Process Undoubtedly Involves A Constant Remodeling Of The Organism In Adaptation To New Conditions; But It Depends On The Nature Of Those Conditions Whether The Direction Of The Modifications Effected Shall Be Upward Or Downward.

The Child Who Has Been Taught To Make An Accurate Elevation, Plan, And Section Of A Pint Pot Has Had An Admirable Training In Accuracy Of Eye And Hand.

A Man Who Speaks Out Honestly And Fearlessly That Which He Knows, And That Which He Believes, Will Always Enlist The Good Will And The Respect, However Much He May Fail In Winning The Assent, Of His Fellow Men.

We Live In The Hope And Faith That, By The Advance Of Molecular Physics, We Shall By-and-by Be Able To See Our Way As Clearly From The Constituents Of Water To The Properties Of Water, As We Are Now Able To Deduce The Operations Of A Watch From The Form Of Its Parts And The Manner In Which They Are Put Together.

The Only People, Scientific Or Other, Who Never Make Mistakes Are Those Who Do Nothing.

Making Mistakes

It Is Because The Body Is A Machine That Education Is Possible. Education Is The Formation Of Habits, A Superinducing Of An Artificial Organization Upon The Natural Organization Of The Body.

Logical Consequences Are The Scarecrows Of Fools And The Beacons Of Wise Men.

Within The Last Fifty Years, The Extraordinary Growth Of Every Department Of Physical Science Has Spread Among Us Mental Food Of So Nutritious And Stimulating A Character That A New Ecdysis Seems Imminent.

In Scientific Work, Those Who Refuse To Go Beyond Fact Rarely Get As Far As Fact.

Not Only Does Every Animal Live At The Expense Of Some Other Animal Or Plant, But The Very Plants Are At War.... The Individuals Of A Species Are Like The Crew Of A Foundered Ship, And None But Good Swimmers Have A Chance Of Reaching The Land.

The Doctrine Of Transmigration Was A Means Of Constructing A Plausible Vindication Of The Ways Of The Cosmos To Man; None But Very Hasty Thinkers Will Reject It On The Grounds Of Inherent Absurdity.

All Truth, In The Long Run, Is Only Common Sense Clarified.

In Science, As In Art, And, As I Believe, In Every Other Sphere Of Human Activity, There May Be Wisdom In A Multitude Of Counsellors, But It Is Only In One Or Two Of Them.

In Truth, The Laboratory Is The Forecourt Of The Temple Of Philosophy, And Whoso Has Not Offered Sacrifices And Undergone Purification There Has Little Chance Of Admission Into The Sanctuary.

Economy Does Not Lie In Sparing Money, But In Spending It Wisely.

I Would Rather Be The Offspring Of Two Apes Than Be A Man And Afraid To Face The Truth.

Skepticism Is The Highest Duty And Blind Faith The One Unpardonable Sin.

Books Are The Money Of Literature, But Only The Counters Of Science.

It Is The First Duty Of A Hypothesis To Be Intelligible.

Let Us Have "sweet Girl Graduates" By All Means. They Will Be None The Less Sweet For A Little Wisdom; And The "golden Hair" Will Not Curl Less Gracefully Outside The Head By Reason Of There Being Brains Within.

Genius, As An Explosive Power, Beats Gunpowder Hollow.

There Is But One Right, And The Possibilities Of Wrong Are Infinite.

My Fundamental Axiom Of Speculative Philosophy Is That Materialism And Spiritualism Are Opposite Poles Of The Same Absurdity-the Absurdity Of Imagining That We Know Anything About Either Spirit Or Matter.

Matter And Force Are The Two Names Of The One Artist Who Fashions The Living As Well As The Lifeless.

Action Is The Catalyst That Creates Accomplishments. It Is The Path That Takes Us From Uncrafted Hopes To Realized Dreams.

Each Such Answer To The Great Question, Invariably Asserted By The Followers Of Its Propounder, If Not By Himself, To Be Complete And Final, Remains In High Authority And Esteem, It May Be For One Century, Or It May Be For Twenty: But, As Invariably, Time Proves Each Reply To Have Been A Mere Approximation To The Truth Tolerable Chiefly On Account Of The Ignorance Of Those By Whom It Was Accepted, And Wholly Intolerable When Tested By The Larger Knowledge Of Their Successors.

Social Progress Means A Checking Of The Cosmic Process At Every Step And The Substitution For It Of Another, Which May Be Called The Ethical Process; The End Of Which Is Not The Survival Of Those Who May Happen To Be The Fittest, In Respect Of The Whole Of The Conditions Which Obtain, But Of Those Who Are Ethically The Best.

Nothing Can Be More Incorrect Than The Assumption One Sometimes Meets With, That Physics Has One Method, Chemistry Another, And Biology A Third.

Oh Devil! Truth Is Better Than Much Profit. I Have Searched Over The Grounds Of My Belief, And If Wife And Child And Name And Fame Were All To Be Lost To Me One After The Other As The Penalty, Still I Will Not Lie.

In Fact A Favourite Problem Of Tyndall Is-given The Molecular Forces In A Mutton Chop, Deduce Hamlet Or Faust Therefrom. He Is Confident That The Physics Of The Future Will Solve This Easily.

I Protest That If Some Great Power Would Agree To Make Me Always Think What Is True And Do What Is Right, On Condition Of Being Turned Into A Sort Of Clock And Would Up Every Morning Before I Got Out Of Bed, I Should Instantly Close With The Offer.

Try To Learn Something About Everything And Everything About Something.

If The Twentieth Century Is To Be Better Than The Nineteenth, It Will Be Because There Are Among Us Men Who Walk In Priestley's Footsteps....to All Eternity, The Sum Of Truth And Right Will Have Been Increased By Their Means; To All Eternity, Falsehoods And Injustice Will Be The Weaker Because They Have Lived.

Claiming My Right To Follow Whethersoever Science Should Lead... It Is As Respectable To Be Modified Monkey As Modified Dirt.

Man's Place In Nature.

In The World Of Letters, Learning And Knowledge Are One, And Books Are The Source Of Both; Whereas In Science, As In Life, Learning And Knowledge Are Distinct, And The Study Of Things, And Not Of Books, Is The Source Of The Latter.

Living Things Have No Inertia, And Tend To No Equilibrium.

I Have Never Had The Least Sympathy With The A Priori Reasons Against Orthodoxy, And I Have By Nature And Disposition The Greatest Possible Antipathy To All The Atheistic And Infidel School. Nevertheless I Know That I Am, In Spite Of Myself, Exactly What The Christian Would Call, And, So Far As I Can See, Is Justified In Calling, Atheist And Infidel.

There Is No Sadder Sight In The World Than To See A Beautiful Theory Killed By A Brutal Fact.

Mathematics May Be Compared To A Mill Of Exquisite Workmanship, Which Grinds Your Stuff To Any Degree Of Fineness.

Science Is Organized Common Sense Where Many A Beautiful Theory Was Killed By An Ugly Fact.

The Results Of Political Changes Are Hardly Ever Those Which Their Friends Hope Or Their Foes Fear.

Agnosticism, In Fact, Is Not A Creed, But A Method, The Essence Of Which Lies In The Rigorous Application Of A Single Principle. ... Positively The Principle May Be Expressed: In Matters Of The Intellect, Follow Your Reason As Far As It Will Take You, Without Regard To Any Other Consideration. And Negatively: In Matters Of The Intellect, Do Not Pretend That Conclusions Are Certain Which Are Not Demonstrated Or Demonstrable.

It Is Given To Few To Add The Store Of Knowledge, To Strike New Springs Of Thought, Or To Shape New Forms Of Beauty. But So Sure As It Is That Men Live Not By Bread, But By Ideas, So Sure Is It That The Future Of The World Lies In The Hands Of Those Who Are Able To Carry The Interpretation Of Nature A Step Further Than Their Predecessors.

I Know Of No Department Of Natural Science More Likely To Reward A Man Who Goes Into It Thoroughly Than Anthropology. There Is An Immense Deal To Be Done In The Science Pure And Simple, And It Is One Of Those Branches Of Inquiry Which Brings One Into Contact With The Great Problems Of Humanity In Every Direction.

There Is No Absurdity In Theology So Great That You Cannot Parallel It By A Greater Absurdity In Nature.

Material Advancement Has Its Share In Moral And Intellectual Progress. Becky Sharp's Acute Remark That It Is Not Difficult To Be Virtuous On Ten Thousand A Year Has Its Applications To Nations; And It Is Futile To Expect A Hungry And Squalid Population To Be Anything But Violent And Gross.

Extinguished Theologians Lie About The Cradle Of Every Science, As Strangled Snakes Beside That Of Hercules

I Am Too Much Of A Sceptic To Deny The Possibility Of Anything...

I Believe That History Might Be, And Ought To Be, Taught In A New Fashion So As To Make The Meaning Of It As A Process Of Evolution Intelligible To The Young.

The Only Good That I Can See In The Demonstration Of The Truth Of "spiritualism" Is To Furnish An Additional Argument Against Suicide. Better Live A Crossing-sweeper Than Die And Be Made To Talk Twaddle By A "medium" Hired At A Guinea A Séance.

True Science And True Religion Are Twin Sisters, And The Separation Of Either From The Other Is Sure To Prove The Death Of Both. Science Prospers Exactly In Proportion As It Is Religious; And Religion Flourishes In Exact Proportion To The Scientific Depth And Firmness Of Its Basis.

There Is No Sea More Dangerous Than The Ocean Of Practical Politics None In Which There Is More Need Of Good Pilotage And Of A Single, Unfaltering Purpose When The Waves Rise High.

I Wish You Would Let An Old Man, Who Has Had His Share Of Fighting, Remind You That Battles, Like Hypotheses, Are Not To Be Multiplied Beyond Necessity.

The Occurrence Of Successive Forms Of Life Upon Our Globe Is An Historical Fact, Which Cannot Be Disputed; And The Relation Of These Successive Forms, As Stages Of Evolution Of The Same Type, Is Established In Various Cases.

If A Man Cannot See A Church, It Is Preposterous To Take His Opinion About Its Altar-piece Or Painted Window.

It Is Better To Read A Little And Thoroughly Than Cram A Crude Undigested Mass Into My Head, Though It Be Great In Quantity.

There Is Nothing Of Permanent Value (putting Aside A Few Human Affections) Nothing That Satisfies Quiet Reflection--except The Sense Of Having Worked According To One's Capacity And Light To Make Things Clear And Get Rid Of Cant And Shams Of All Sorts.

Nothing Great In Science Has Ever Been Done By Men, Whatever Their Powers, In Whom The Divine Afflatus Of The Truth-seeker Was Wanting.

If There Is Anything In The World Which I Do Firmly Believe In, It Is The Universal Validity Of The Law Of Causation.

It Is Not To Be Forgotten That What We Call Rational Grounds For Our Beliefs Are Often Extremely Irrational Attempts To Justify Our Instincts.

If The Hypothesis Of Evolution Is True, Living Matter Must Have Arisen From Non-living Matter; For By The Hypothesis The Condition Of The Globe Was At One Time Such, That Living Matter Could Not Have Existed In It, Life Being Entirely Incompatible With The Gaseous State.

The Rules Of The Game Are What We Call The Laws Of Nature.

Expanding Universe

It Seems Safe To Look Forward To The Time When The Conception Of Attractive And Repulsive Forces, Having Served Its Purpose As A Useful Piece Of Scientific Scaffolding, Will Be Replaced By The Deduction Of The Phenomena Known As Attraction And Repulsion, From The General Laws Of Motion.

The Only Medicine For Suffering, Crime, And All Other Woes Of Mankind, Is Wisdom. Teach A Man To Read And Write, And You Have Put Into His Hands The Great Keys Of The Wisdom Box. But It Is Quite Another Thing To Open The Box.

Science Reckons Many Prophets, But There Is Not Even A Promise Of A Messiah.

There Is No Alleviation For The Sufferings Of Mankind Except Veracity Of Thought And Of Action, And The Resolute Facing Of The World As It Is When The Garment Of Make-believe By Which Pious Hands Have Hidden Its Uglier Features Is Stripped Off.

Size Is Not Grandeur, And Territory Does Not Make A Nation.

I'd Rather Have An Ape For An Ancestor Than A Bishop.

The Foundation Of All Morality Is To Have Done, Once And For All, With Lying; To Give Up Pretending To Believe That For Which There Is No Evidence, And Repeating Unintelligible Propositions About Things Beyond The Possibilities Of Knowledge.

Follow Humbly Wherever And To Whatever Abyss Nature Leads, Or You Shall Learn Nothing.

Even In The Important Matter Of Cranial Capacity, Men Differ More Widely From One Another Than They Do From The Apes; While The Lowest Apes Differ As Much, In Proportion, From The Highest, As The Latter Does From Man.

There Is Far Too Much Of The Feeding-bottle In Education And Young People Ought To Be Supplied With Good Intellectual Food And Then Left To Help Themselves.

Common Sense Is Science Exactly In So Far As It Fulfills The Ideal Of Common Sense; That Is, Sees Facts As They Are, Or At Any Rate, Without The Distortion Of Prejudice, And Reasons From Them In Accordance With The Dictates Of Sound Judgment. And Science Is Simply Common Sense At Its Best, That Is, Rigidly Accurate In Observation, And Merciless To Fallacy In Logic.

No Mistake Is So Commonly Made By Clever People As That Of Assuming A Cause To Be Bad Because The Arguments Of Its Supporters Are, To A Great Extent, Nonsensical

The Doctrine That All Men Are, In Any Sense, Or Have Been, At Any Time, Free And Equal, Is An Utterly Baseless Fiction.

I Doubt The Fact, To Begin With, But If It Be So Even, What Is This But In Grand Words Asking Me To Believe A Thing Because I Like It.

Cherish [science], Venerate Her, Follow Her Methods Faithfully ... And The Future Of This People Will Be Greater Than The Past.

Science Seems To Me To Teach In The Highest And Strongest Manner The Great Truth Which Is Embodied In The Christian Conception Of Entire Surrender To The Will Of God. Sit Down Before Fact As A Little Child, Be Prepared To Give Up Every Preconceived Notion, Follow Humbly Wherever And To Whatever Abysses Nature Leads, Or You Shall Learn Nothing. I Have Only Begun To Learn Content And Peace Of Mind Since I Have Resolved At All Risks To Do This.

My Belief Is That No Human Being Or Society Composed Of Human Beings Ever Did Or Ever Will Come To Much Unless Their Conduct Was Governed And Guided By The Love Of Some Ethical Ideal.

My Business Is To Teach My Aspirations To Confirm Themselves To Fact, Not To Try And Make Facts Harmonize With My Aspirations.

I Conceive That The Leading Characteristic Of The Nineteenth Century Has Been The Rapid Growth Of The Scientific Spirit, The Consequent Application Of Scientific Methods Of Investigation To All The Problems With Which The Human Mind Is Occupied, And The Correlative Rejection Of Traditional Beliefs Which Have Proved Their Incompetence To Bear Such Investigation.

No Man Is Any The Worse Off Because Another Acquires Wealth By Trade, Or By The Exercise Of A Profession; On The Contrary, He Cannot Have Acquired His Wealth Except By Benefiting Others To The Extent Of What They Considered To Be Its Value.

Education Is The Instruction Of The Intellect In The Laws Of Nature, Under Which Name I Include Not Merely Things And Their Forces, But People And Their Ways; And The Fashioning Of The Affections And Of The Will Into An Earnest And Loving Desire To Move In Harmony With Those Laws.

There Is Assuredly No More Effectual Method Of Clearing Up One's Own Mind On Any Subject Than By Talking It Over, So To Speak, With Men Of Real Power And Grasp, Who Have Considered It From A Totally Different Point Of View.

Science Is Simply Common Sense At Its Best, That Is, Rigidly Accurate In Observation, And Merciless To Fallacy In Logic.

Veracity Is The Heart Of Morality.

The Most Considerable Difference I Note Among Men Is Not In Their Readiness To Fall Into Error, But In Their Readiness To Acknowledge These Inevitable Lapses.

The Birth Of Science Was The Death Of Superstition.

The Method Of Scientific Investigation Is Nothing But The Expression Of The Necessary Mode Of Working Of The Human Mind.

Scientific Method

There Is No Greater Mistake Than The Hasty Conclusion That Opinions Are Worthless Because They Are Badly Argued.

Only One Absolute Certainty Is Possible To Man, Namely That At Any Given Moment The Feeling Which He Has Exists.

Absolute Certainty

Teach A Man To Read And Write, And You Have Put Into His Hands The Great Keys Of The Wisdom-box.

To A Person Uninstructed In Natural History, His Country Or Sea-side Stroll Is A Walk Through A Gallery Filled With Wonderful Works Of Art, Nine-tenths Of Which Have Their Faces Turned To The Wall. Teach Him Something Of Natural History, And You Place In His Hands A Catalogue Of Those Which Are Worth Turning Around. Surely Our Innocent Pleasures Are Not So Abundant In This Life, That We Can Afford To Despise This Or Any Other Source Of Them.

People May Talk About Intellectual Teaching, But What We Principally Want Is The Moral Teaching.

I Take It That The Good Of Mankind Means The Attainment, By Every Man, Of All The Happiness Which He Can Enjoy Without Diminishing The Happiness Of His Fellow Men

The Man Who Is All Morality And Intellect, Although He May Be Good And Even Great, Is, After All, Only Half A Man.

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John Galsworthy

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