It is not the truth in man’s possession that makes the worth of man. Possession makes him selfish, lazy, proud. Not through possession, but through long striving comes the ever-growing strength. If God should hold in His right hand all truth, and in His left hand only the ceaseless struggle to reach after truth, and He should say to me, choose, I would fall in humbleness before His left hand and say – ” Father, give; the perfect truth is but for Thee Alone.”
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They say every tie in the Panama Railway cost a man his life. Whether this be true or not, it may serve as an illustration of the progress of human knowledge. Every step in the advance of Science has cost the life of a man.
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THE SECRET OF FLATTERY’S SUCCESS
Each individual in his own secret heart believes himself in some degree the subject of the favour of the mysterious unseen powers.
“Extinguished theologians,” says Huxley, “lie about the cradle of every science, as the strangled snakes beside that of the infant Hercules.”
Not only theologians but all learned men*
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Learning and wisdom are not identical. They are not always on speaking terms. Learning looks backward to the past. Wisdom looks forward to the future.