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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.

-Thomas Huxley

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Social Progress Means A

Thomas Huxley

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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.

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It May Be Quite True That Some Negroes Are Better Than Some White Men; But No Rational Man, Cognisant Of The Facts, Believes That The Average Negro Is The Equal, Still Less The Superior, Of The Average White Man. And, If This Be True, It Is Simply Incredible That, When All His Disabilities Are Removed, And Our Prognathous Relative Has A Fair Field And No Favour, As Well As No Oppressor, He Will Be Able To Compete Successfully With His Bigger-brained And Smaller-jawed Rival, In A Contest Which Is To Be Carried On By Thoughts And Not By Bites.

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.

Some Experience Of Popular Lecturing Had Convinced Me That The Necessity Of Making Things Plain To Uninstructed People, Was One Of The Very Best Means Of Clearing Up The Obscure Corners In One's Own Mind.

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

That Mysterious Independent Variable Of Political Calculation, Public Opinion.

Try To Learn Something About Everything And Everything About Something.

What Men Need Is, As Much Knowledge As They Can Assimilate And Organize Into A Basis For Action; Give Them More And It May Become Injurious. One Knows People Who Are As Heavy And Stupid From Undigested Learning .

... 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 Birth Of Science Was The Death Of Superstition.

If A Little Knowledge Is Dangerous, Where Is The Man Who Has So Much As To Be Out Of Danger?

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.

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.

Whatever Evil Voices May Rage, Science, Secure Among The Powers That Are Eternal, Will Do Her Work And Be Blessed.

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.

Only A Scientific People Can Survive In A Scientific Future.

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.

From The Dawn Of Exact Knowledge To The Present Day, Observation, Experiment, And Speculation Have Gone Hand In Hand; And, Whenever Science Has Halted Or Strayed From The Right Path, It Has Been, Either Because Its Votaries Have Been Content With Mere Unverified Or Unverifiable Speculation (and This Is The Commonest Case, Because Observation And Experiment Are Hard Work, While Speculation Is Amusing); Or It Has Been, Because The Accumulation Of Details Of Observation Has For A Time Excluded Speculation.

A World Of Facts Lies Outside And Beyond The World Of Words.

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

Science Is Simply Common Sense At Its Best.

Agnosticism Is Not Properly Described As A "negative" Creed, Nor Indeed As A Creed Of Any Kind, Except In So Far As It Expresses Absolute Faith In The Validity Of A Principle Which Is As Much Ethical As Intellectual.

The Whole Analogy Of Natural Operations Furnishes So Complete And Crushing An Argument Against The Intervention Of Any But What Are Termed Secondary Causes, In The Production Of All The Phenomena Of The Universe; That, In View Of The Intimate Relations Between Man And The Rest Of The Living World; And Between The Forces Exerted By The Latter And All Other Forces, I Can See No Excuse For Doubting That All Are Co-ordinated Terms Of Nature's Great Progression, From The Formless To The Formed From The Inorganic To The Organic From Blind Force To Conscious Intellect And Will.

Every Philosophical Thinker Hails It [the Origin Of Species] As A Veritable Whitworth Gun In The Armoury Of Liberalism.

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.

Surely It Must Be Plain That An Ingenious Man Could Speculate Without End On Both Sides, And Find Analogies For All His Dreams. Nor Does It Help Me To Tell Me That The Aspirations Of Mankind

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.

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.

The Only Question Which Any Wise Man Can Ask Himself, And Which Any Honest Man Will Ask Himself, Is Whether A Doctrine Is True Or False.

The Besetting Sin Of Able Men Is Impatience Of Contradiction And Of Criticism. Even Those Who Do Their Best To Resist The Temptation, Yield To It Almost Unconsciously And Become The Tools Of Toadies And Flatterers. "authorities," "disciples," And "schools" Are The Curse Of Science And Do More To Interfere With The Work Of The Scientific Spirit Than All Its Enemies.

The Facts Of Variability, Of The Struggle For Existence, Of Adaptation To Conditions, Were Notorious Enough; But None Of Us Had Suspected That The Road To The Heart Of The Species Problem Lay Through Them, Until Darwin And Wallace Dispelled The Darkness.

Genius, As An Explosive Power, Beats Gunpowder Hollow.

Without Seeing Any Reason To Believe That Women Are, On The Average, So Strong Physically, Intellectually, Or Morally, As Men, I Cannot Shut My Eyes To The Fact That Many Women Are Much Better Endowed In All These Respects Than Many Men, And I Am At A Loss To Understand On What Grounds Of Justice Or Public Policy A Career Which Is Open To The Weakest And Most Foolish Of The Male Sex Should Be Forcibly Closed To Women Of Vigor And Capacity.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

There Are Some Men Who Are Counted Great Because They Represent The Actuality Of Their Own Age, And Mirror It As It Is. Such An One Was Voltaire, Of Whom It Was Epigrammatically Said: "he Expressed Everybody's Thoughts Better Than Anyone." But There Are Other Men Who Attain Greatness Because They Embody The Potentiality Of Their Own Day And Magically Reflect The Future. They Express The Thoughts Which Will Be Everybody's Two Or Three Centuries After Them. Such As One Was Descartes.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Science And Literature Are Not Two Things, But Two Sides Of One Thing.

Though Under-instruction Is A Bad Thing, It Is Not Impossible That Over-instruction May Be Worse.

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.

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.

It Is Not Who Is Right, But What Is Right, That Is Of Importance.

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.

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

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.

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

Not Far From The Invention Of Fire We Must Rank The Invention Of Doubt.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

The Scientific Imagination Always Restrains Itself Within The Limits Of Probability.

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

Mathematics May Be Compared To A Mill Of Exquisite Workmanship, Which Grinds You Stuff Of Any Degree Of Fineness; But, Nevertheless, What You Get Out Depends Upon What You Put In; And As The Grandest Mill In The World Will Not Extract Wheat-flour From Peascods, So Pages Of Formulae Will Not Get A Definite Result Out Of Loose Data.

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.

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

That Which Lies Before The Human Race Is A Constant Struggle To Maintain And Improve, In Opposition To State Of Nature, The State Of Art Of An Organized Polity; In Which, And By Which, Man May Develop A Worthy Civilization

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.

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

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

It May Be Well To Remember That The Highest Level Of Moral Aspiration Recorded In History Was Reached By A Few Ancient Jews--micah, Isaiah, And The Rest--who Took No Count Whatever Of What Might Not Happen To Them After Death. It Is Not Obvious To Me Why The Same Point Should Not By And By Be Reached By The Gentiles.

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

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

The Dogma Of The Infallibility Of The Bible Is No More Self-evident Than Is That Of The Infallibility Of The Popes.

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.

Ecclesiasticism In Science Is Only Unfaithfulness To Truth

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

What Would Become Of The Garden If The Gardener Treated All The Weeds And Slugs And Birds And Trespassers As He Would Like To Be Treated, If He Were In Their Place?

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

A Man's Worst Difficulties Begin When He Is Able To Do As He Likes.

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

The More Rapidly Truth Is Spread Among Mankind The Better It Will Be For Them. Only Let Us Be Sure That It Is The Truth.

All Knowledge Is Good. It Is Impossible To Say Any Fragment Of Knowledge, However Insignificant Or Remote From One's Ordinary Pursuits, May Not Some Day Be Turned To Account.

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.

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

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

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.

Surely There Is A Time To Submit To Guidance And A Time To Take One's Own Way At All Hazards.

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.

Science Commits Suicide When It Adopts A Creed.

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

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.

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

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.

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

To Persons Uninstructed In Natural History, Their Country Or Seaside Stroll Is A Walk Through A Gallery Filled With Wonderful Works Of Art, Nine-tenths Of Which Have Their Faces Turned To The Wall.

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.

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.

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.

Unfortunately, It Is Much Easier To Shut One's Eyes To Good Than To Evil. Pain And Sorrow Knock At Our Doors More Loudly Than Pleasure And Happiness; And The Prints Of Their Heavy Footsteps Are Less Easily Effaced.

I Really See No Harm Which Can Come Of Giving Our Children A Little Knowledge Of Physiology. ... The Instruction Must Be Real, Based Upon Observation, Eked Out By Good Explanatory Diagrams And Models, And Conveyed By A Teacher Whose Own Knowledge Has Been Acquired By A Study Of The Facts; And Not The Mere Catechismal Parrot-work Which Too Often Usurps The Place Of Elementary Teaching.

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

Science Is Nothing, But Trained And Organized Common Sense.

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.

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.

To Say That An Idea Is Necessary Is Simply To Affirm That We Cannot Conceive The Contrary; And The Fact That We Cannot Conceive The Contrary Of Any Belief May Be A Presumption, But Is Certainly No Proof, Of Its Truth.

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.

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

Scientific Method

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

People Never Will Recollect That Mere Learning And Mere Cleverness Are Of Next To No Value In Life, While Energy And Intellectual Grip, The Things That Are Inborn And Cannot Be Taught, Are Everything.

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.

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.

Mr. Darwin's Hypothesis Is Not, So Far As I Am Aware, Inconsistent With Any Known Biological Fact; On The Contrary, If Admitted, The Facts Of Development, Of Comparative Anatomy, Of Geographical Distribution, And Of Palaeontology, Become Connected Together, And Exhibit A Meaning Such As They Never Possessed Before; And I, For One, Am Fully Convinced That If Not Precisely True, That Hypothesis Is As Near An Approximation To The Truth As, For Example, The Copernican Hypothesis Was To The True Theory Of The Planetary Motions.

Mix Salt And Sand, And It Shall Puzzle The Wisest Of Men, With His Mere Natural Appliances, To Separate All The Grains Of Sand From All The Grains Of Salt; But A Shower Of Rain Will Effect The Same Object In Ten Minutes.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

. . . I Fail To Find A Trace [in Protestantism] Of Any Desire To Set Reason Free. The Most That Can Be Discovered Is A Proposal To Change Masters. From Being A Slave Of The Papacy, The Intellect Was To Become The Serf Of The Bible.

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

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

Authority And Power

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The Science, The Art, The Jurisprudence, The Chief Political And Social Theories, Of The Modern World Have Grown Out Of Greece And Rome-not By Favour Of, But In The Teeth Of, The Fundamental Teachings Of Early Christianity, To Which Science, Art, And Any Serious Occupation With The Things Of This World Were Alike Despicable.

It Is One Of The Most Saddening Things In Life That, Try As We May, We Can Never Be Certain Of Making People Happy, Whereas We Can Almost Always Be Certain Of Making Them Unhappy.

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

A Drop Of Water Is As Powerful As A Thunder-bolt.

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

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.

You May Read Any Quantity Of Books, And You May Almost As Ignorant As You Were At Starting, If You Don't Have, At The Back Of Yourminds, The Change For Words In Definite Images Which Can Only Be Acquired Through The Operation Of Your Observing Faculties On The Phenomena Of Nature.

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.

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.

What Men Of Science Want Is Only A Fair Day's Wages For More Than A Fair Day's Work.

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.

The Foundation Of Morality Is To Have Done, Once And For All, With Lying.

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 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.

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.

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

Fact I Know; And Law I Know; But What Is This Necessity, Save An Empty Shadow Of My Own Mind's Throwing?

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.

Can Any One Deny That The Old Israelites Conceived Jahveh Not Only In The Image Of A Man, But In That Of A Changeable, Irritable, And, Occasionally, Violent Man?

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

Making Mistakes

The Saying That A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing Is, To My Mind, A Very Dangerous Adage. If Knowledge Is Real And Genuine, I Do Not Believe That It Is Other Than A Very Valuable Posession, However Infinitesimal Its Quantity May Be. Indeed, If A Little Knowledge Is Dangerous, Where Is A Man Who Has So Much As To Be Out Of Danger?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

I Cannot Say That I Am In The Slightest Degree Impressed By Your Bigness, Or Your Material Resources, As Such. Size Is Not Grandeur, And Territory Does Not Make A Nation. The Great Issue, About Which Hangs True Sublimity, And The Terror Of Overhanging Fate, Is What Are You Going To Do With All These Things?

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

No Slavery Can Be Abolished Without A Double Emancipation, And The Master Will Benefit By Freedom More Than The Freed-man.

Double Standard

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

The Mathematician Starts With A Few Propositions, The Proof Of Which Is So Obvious That They Are Called Self-evident, And The Rest Of His Work Consists Of Subtle Deductions From Them. The Teaching Of Languages, At Any Rate As Ordinarily Practiced, Is Of The Same General Nature Authority And Tradition Furnish The Data, And The Mental Operations Are Deductive.

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

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

It Ought Not To Be Unpleasant To Say That Which One Honestly Believes Or Disbelieves. That It So Constantly Is Painful To Do So, Is Quite Enough Obstacle To The Progress Of Mankind In That Most Valuable Of All Qualities, Honesty Of Word Or Of Deed.

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.

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.

I Hated Tobacco. I Could Have Almost Lent My Support To Any Institution That Had For Its Object The Putting Of Tobacco Smokers To Death...i Now Feel That Smoking In Moderation Is A Comfortable And Laudable Practice, And Is Productive Of Good. There Is No More Harm In A Pipe Than In A Cup Of Tea. You May Poison Yourself By Drinking Too Much Green Tea, And Kill Yourself By Eating Too Many Beefsteaks. For My Part, I Consider That Tobacco, In Moderation, Is A Sweetener And Equalizer Of The Temper.

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

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.

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

Expanding Universe

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

Absolute Certainty

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

It Is Not What We Believe, But Why We Believe It. Moral Responsibility Lies In Diligently Weighing The Evidence. We Must Actively Doubt; We Have To Scrutinize Our Views, Not Take Them On Trust. No Virtue Attached To Blindly Accepting Orthodoxy, However 'venerable'.

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.

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

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.

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.

Make Up Your Mind To Act Decidedly And Take The Consequences. No Good Is Ever Done In This World By Hesitation.

Self Confidence

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.

A Good Man: Body Serves His Will And Enjoys Hard Work, Clear Intellect That Understands The Truths Of Nature, Full Of Passion For Life But Controlled By His Will, Well-developed Conscience, Loves Beauty In Art And Nature, Despises Inferior Morality, Respects Himself And Others.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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