III. THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH
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I CANNOT hope to have every one accept my message as the truth, even if it be true. Let us assume, for the sake of the argument, that it is the very truth itself; that I wrote with the eloquence of an angel, adduced the most convincing arguments, proved my case perfectly for most men—there would still be many who would criticize and find fault and reject, for the possession of the truth may involve sacrifice of cherished opinions.
There are men who love reasonings about the truth; they delight in scientific processes of thought, but they have somehow lost sight of the object of their thought, truth itself, and the common sense that ought to characterize the search. Their critical faculty has become so highly developed that it is excessively exacting in its demands; it is critical beyond use or reason. It cannot see the end or aim of their endeavor, but loses itself in the processes of the study.
They have lost their perspective. Great things to them are small and small things great. And of all men they are the most sure of themselves, most satisfied with their ability as seekers after truth. They know how to analyze, to examine critically, and to define scientifically. They are better satisfied with the minute study of a butterfly's wing than they are with a satisfactory theory of creation. It is indeed an endeavor and a delight with them as a side issue to weave theories of creation from the wing of a butterfly. Even though all creation might be pictured in the microcosm, it does not strike them that with their imperfect equipment in the way of previous knowledge and powers of observation it may not be possible for them to perceive it.
They are those who refuse to consider the factor of the unseen forces above or within nature, the real causes of phenomena, reasoning altogether from sense impressions, and they are as unsatisfactory in their conclusions as were those who accepted the rising and the setting of the sun as real facts instead of as apparent facts. The process of obtaining knowledge, it is true, is from sense impression, thence worked over into knowledges or related impressions, thence worked over into reasonings based upon knowledges. By a posteriori processes we all form theories from the facts of the world as we see them, but the theories, once formed, are applied a priori to all facts, new or old. If our theories thus formed do not fit all the facts (and the above-nature facts are often left out because unseen, except in their effects) we are too often prone to reject undeniable but undesirable facts. Mr. Podsnap's method, with which Dickens made us acquainted, of eliminating from our consideration whatever we find inconvenient by a simple wave of the arm, is possibly far more prevalent with us all than we care to admit.
Do we love the truth sincerely and honestly, love it for its own sake, love it in spite of the disagreeable things it may reveal? Perhaps we are a little cautious in our reply. We do not know just what the possession of the truth involves. It may mean that we shall have to regard things differently from what we do now, and we are pretty well satisfied with our present views. The truth may be unpleasant to us in many ways. Not only may it necessitate the giving up of our present comfortable theories in the domain of thought, but a possible change in our present comfortable attitude toward life. We do not like to change either our thoughts or our manner of life. We like the old ways. Like old shoes, they are more comfortable. We would probably declare, if asked, that we want to know the truth, but we are pretty well satisfied that we already know it. So if we chance to find that a knowledge of the truth involves a giving up or a laying down, a renunciation, a sacrifice of something that we have learned to love because we have had it in our possession a very long time, we may decide that the new thing is not the truth because it is not so comfortable as the old view. This is the selfish spirit, the spirit that makes old abuses of so long a life and reform so interminably tedious. The new thing may be true, but it is new.
The message of Jesus to us is: "If ye continue in my words, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." It follows that in such a case we shall see our errors and our evils, but at least we shall get rid of them and be free men. Let us then be brave men who, because we desire to be free, do not fear the light whatever of sacrifice it may involve. If the thing is true, we want to know it. The vision of it may so entrance us that nothing will be accounted sacrifice if so be that we at last possess it.