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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.

-Thomas Huxley

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The Student Of Nature

Thomas Huxley

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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.

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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.

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.

Genius, As An Explosive Power, Beats Gunpowder Hollow.

If Then, Said I, The Question Is Put To Me Would I Rather Have A Miserable Ape For A Grandfather Or A Man Highly Endowed By Nature And Possessing Great Means And Influence And Yet Who Employs Those Faculties For The Mere Purpose Of Introducing Ridicule Into A Grave Scientific Discussion-i Unhesitatingly Affirm My Preference For The Ape.

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

Double Standard

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

For Every Man The World Is As Fresh As It Was At The First Day, And As Full Of Untold Novelties For Him Who Has The Eyes To See Them.

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

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

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.

Only A Scientific People Can Survive In A Scientific Future.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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 .

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Life Is Too Short To Occupy Oneself With The Slaying Of The Slain More Than Once.

Life Is Too Short

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

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.

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.

Science Is Nothing, But Trained And Organized Common Sense.

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.

Veracity Is The Heart Of Morality.

The Population Question Is The Real Riddle Of The Sphinx, To Which No Political Oedipus Has As Yet Found The Answer. In View Of The Ravages Of The Terrible Monster Over-multiplication, All Other Riddle Sink Into Insignificance.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

Expanding Universe

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

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

Our Reverence For The Nobility Of Manhood Will Not Be Lessened By The Knowledge That Man Is In Substance And In Structure, One With The Brutes; For He Alone Possesses The Marvellous Endowment Of Intelligible And Rational Speech Whereby He Has Slowly Accumulated And Organized The Experience Which Is Almost Wholly Lost With The Cessation Of Individual Life In Other Animals; So That He Now Stands Raised Above It As On A Mountain-top, Far Above The Level Of His Humble Fellows, And Transfigured From His Grosser Nature By Reflecting, Here And There, A Ray From The Infinite Source Of Truth.

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.

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

Science ... Warns Me To Be Careful How I Adopt A View Which Jumps With My Preconceptions, And To Require Stronger Evidence For Such Belief Than For One To Which I Was Previously Hostile. My Business Is To Teach My Aspirations To Conform Themselves To Fact, Not To Try And Make Facts Harmonize With My Aspirations.

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

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.

That Mysterious Independent Variable Of Political Calculation, Public Opinion.

What Are The Moral Convictions Most Fondly Held By Barbarous And Semi-barbarous People? They Are The Convictions That Authority Is The Soundest Basis Of Belief; That Merit Attaches To Readiness To Believe; That The Doubting Disposition Is A Bad One, And Skepticism Is A Sin.

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.

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.

Science Is Simply Common Sense At Its Best.

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.

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 Scientific Imagination Always Restrains Itself Within The Limits Of Probability.

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

My Reflection, When I First Made Myself Master Of The Central Idea Of The 'origin', Was, 'how Extremely Stupid Not To Have Thought Of That!'

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?

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

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

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

Self Confidence

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.

The Quarrels Of Theologians And Philosophers Have Not Been About Religion, But About Philosophy; And Philosophers Not Unfrequently Seem To Entertain The Same Feeling Toward Theologians That Sportsmen Cherish Toward Poachers.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Tolerably Early In Life I Discovered That One Of The Unpardonable Sins, In The Eyes Of Most People, Is For A Man To Go About Unlabeled. The World Regards Such A Person As The Police Do An Unmuzzled Dog.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

I Am Not Afraid Of The Priests In The Long-run. Scientific Method Is The White Ant Which Will Slowly But Surely Destroy Their Fortifications. And The Importance Of Scientific Method In Modern Practical Life--always Growing And Increasing--is The Guarantee For The Gradual Emancipation Of The Ignorant Upper And Lower Classes, The Former Of Whom Especially Are The Strength Of The Priests.

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

Authority And Power

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

Making Mistakes

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Absolute Certainty

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

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.

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.

The Known Is Finite, The Unknown Infinite; Spiritually We Find Ourselves On A Tiny Island In The Middle Of A Boundless Ocean Of The Inexplicable. It Is Our Task, From Generation To Generation, To Drain A Small Amount Of Additional Land.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

[scientists] Have Learned To Respect Nothing But Evidence, And To Believe That Their Highest Duty Lies In Submitting To It However It May Jar Against Their Inclinations.

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

If The Perpetual Oscillation Of Nations Between Anarchy And Despotism Is To Be Replaced By The Steady March Of Self-restraining Freedom, It Will Be Because Men Will Gradually Bring Themselves To Deal With Political, As They Now Deal With Scientific Questions.

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.

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.

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.

The Great Thing In The World Is Not So Much To Seek Happiness As To Earn Peace And Self-respect.

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.

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

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 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.

The Rung Of A Ladder Was Never Meant To Rest Upon, But Only To Hold A Man's Foot Long Enough To Enable Him To Put The Other Somewhat Higher.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Any One Who Has Studied The History Of Science Knows That Almost Every Great Step Therein Has Been Made By The "anticipation Of Nature," That Is, By The Invention Of Hypotheses, Which, Though Verifiable, Often Had Very Little Foundation To Start With; And, Not Unfrequently, In Spite Of A Long Career Of Usefulness, Turned Out To Be Wholly Erroneous In The Long Run.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The Bible Account Of The Creation Of Eve Is A Preposterous Fable.

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

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.

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.

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

I Am Too Much Of A Sceptic To Deny The Possibility Of Anything Especially As I Am Now So Much Occupied With Theology But I Don't See My Way To Your Conclusion.

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.

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.

Try To Learn Something About Everything And Everything About Something.

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

My Experience Of The World Is That Things Left To Themselves Don't Get Right.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

The Great Tragedy Of Science - The Slaying Of A Beautiful Hypothesis By An Ugly Fact.

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

Scientific Method

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

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

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.

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

Science Commits Suicide When It Adopts A Creed.

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.

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

Misery Is A Match That Never Goes Out.

Give Unqualified Assent To No Propositions But Those The Truth Of Which Is So Clear And Distinct That They Cannot Be Doubted. The Enunciation Of This First Great Commandment Of Science Consecrated Doubt.

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

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

The Improver Of Natural Knowledge Absolutely Refuses To Acknowledge Authority, As Such. For Him, Skepticism Is The Highest Of Duties; Blind Faith The One Unpardonable Sin.

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. This Is What Agnosticism Asserts; And, In My Opinion, It Is All That Is Essential To Agnosticism. That Which Agnostics Deny And Repudiate, As Immoral, Is The Contrary Doctrine, That There Are Propositions Which Men Ought To Believe Without Logically Satisfactory Evidence; And That Reprobation Ought To Attach To The Profession Of Disbelief In Such Inadequately Supported Propositions.

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.

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.

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

The Birth Of Science Was The Death Of Superstition.

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.

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.

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.

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

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'.

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.

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

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