"To be loyal to the truth is of more account than to be merely
successful in formulating it."--_Popular Science Monthly_ for
December.
Indeed it is; for loyalty to truth is the prior condition of success
in formulating or stating it, and that loyalty not only precedes the
special success in formulating it, but is the prior cause of
_universal success_ in its attainment. Special perceptive powers and
favorable opportunities may enable scientists to ascertain certain
truths, as a lamp may enable them to discover a few objects near them
which darkness hides from others, but loyalty to truth reveals, like
daylight, all that lies within our horizon, for it opens widely all
the avenues between the mind and universal nature, and prevents our
mental transparency from being darkened in any direction or relation.
He who has this loyalty dominant in his nature never pronounces
anything false which subsequent investigation, or the investigation by
others, proves true. He never becomes an obstacle to the spread of any
truth. He is always the first to welcome a new truth and the last to
falter in sustaining it. He is always ready to recognize the same
sincerity and fidelity in others, and to give a kindly welcome to the
labors and discoveries of other followers of truth. As brave men
readily recognize and honor each other, so do the soldiers of truth
meet in quick sympathy and cordial co-operation.
The labors, the discoveries and promulgations of such men ever become
criteria by which to test the loyalty and truthfulness of others, for,
wherever they are presented, all who live in loyalty to truth are at
once attracted and realize their harmony with the truth. As the
magnetized iron attracts the unmagnetized, so does the loyal soul
charged with truth attract all other loyal souls.
But all through human history we find that inventions, discoveries
and, above all, momentous truths uniformly fail to attract the masses,
either of the learned or the unlearned, as was illustrated in our
December number, and hence we must conclude that, in the present early
or juvenile stage of human evolution, loyalty to truth is one of the
rarest virtues of humanity.
And yet, how often do we meet in literature expressions which would
indicate that the writers were entirely loyal. They mistake loyalty to
their own self-esteem, loyalty to their own dogmatic convictions,
mental limitations, prejudices, and prepossessions for loyalty to
truth, which is a passionless, modest, lovely and noble quality.
No doubt the contemporaries of Galileo, Newton, and Harvey indulged in
the same self-gratulations. The bigot and dogmatist in all ages have
entertained no doubt of their own loyalty to truth; but it was loyalty
to their own very limited perceptions, and to their profound
conviction that all outside of their own sphere of perception was
falsehood or nonentity, and should be received with supercilious scorn
or crushing blows whenever presented.
Men's minds are thus narrowed in the base contests of selfishness,
jealousy, and fraud; but of all the demoralizing influences that
darken the mind by closing up permanently its most important inlets,
none have had such a wide-spread and far-reaching power for evil as
the false theology which demands the absolute surrender of reason to
self-evident absurdities.
Benumbed by countless centuries of superstition and passive surrender
to false education, to social influences, to pre-natal conditions, to
the terrors of law and custom, and to the lurid threats and horrors of
the imaginary drama of eternity, the mass of mankind have lost the
power of the dispassionate philosophical reasoning demanded by loyalty
to truth, and they do not know how to appreciate it when they see it.
Rebelling now against this limitation and slavery, they still carry in
their rebellion the marks of their slavery, and in their honest
agnosticism they still fail to reason fairly in loyalty to truth, and
indulge in the same dogmatism, narrowness or prejudice as when they
were slaves to priestly dogmas.
It is true that in the agnostic scientific classes there is far more
independent reasoning capacity generally than among those who dwell in
the theological limitations, but their independence has not relieved
them from the dogmatism which has so long been cultivated in the human
race by all religious systems. The dogmatism of the medical college,
and of most scientific associations, rivals that of theological
sectarianism.
The _Popular Science Monthly_, from which the above expression in
behalf of loyalty to truth was taken, is itself a striking
illustration of _disloyalty_, and rigidly confines itself to the
fashionable doctrines of the schools, excluding from its pages
whatever differs from the prevalent scientific dogmatism, and while
denouncing the dogmatism of theology, exhibiting itself a dogmatism
equally blind, unreasoning and regardless of facts. Experimental
demonstrations and scientific facts, which transcend the limits of
their arbitrary theories, receive as little attention from the
dogmatists trained in medical schools, as they would from a college of
cardinals.
The JOURNAL OF MAN, in the presentation of new truths, attracts only
the candid, loyal and progressive. It does not hope to conquer the
results of inheritance, pre-natal influence and old institutions, or
force any truth upon reluctant and disloyal minds, but it knows that
there is an important and growing class who sympathize with loyalty
and prefer the glowing future to the decaying remains of the past.
To the party of progress, this magnificent republic opens a free and
ample field. The domination of habit and transmitted dogmatism is
growing continually weaker, fading away in churches and colleges. The
pulpit of today is tolerant indeed in comparison with the pulpit of
our fathers, and the bright, free thought of the advanced people
surrounds the colleges with an atmosphere which is gradually
penetrating their walls and modifying their policy. An important duty
devolves upon every loyal, progressive thinker,--the duty of speaking
out firmly, manfully and distinctly, to swell the volume of thought
which carries mankind onward to a nobler future.