IN the search for truth—and who seeks not for truth—the man who has begun to think is at first overwhelmed by multitudinous theories of those who claim that they at least are on the right road. The diversity of such opinions is so alarming that the pursuit along any accepted line of thought seems hopeless. The demand for proof which the world always makes of its thinkers has ever proved the fallacy of any theory which, no matter how comforting it may be, cannot show a practical result of its teaching. It was this inability which threw to the ground the theories promulgated by the old Ionian philosophies, and brought in that age of sophistical skepticism from which Socrates saved the world of thought. It was this absence of proof which overthrew the theories of those master minds, Plato and Aristotle, and produced that hopeless crisis from which even the Alexandrian philosophy, though it struggled hard, was unable to lift mankind, until it was reenforced by the ethics of Christianity. For a time the combination of these two seems to have satisfied. The spirit of religious devotion, so inherent in humanity, fostered by a powerful priesthood, appears for many centuries to have drowned the cry for proof.
When again men began to think for themselves, when the churches failed to comfort, and thinking men rebelled against a mode of thought, no matter how sacred, which was barren of results and helpless in the face of the ghastly facts of material existence, philosophy raised its head once more, and the pursuit of truth was taken up with greater zeal than ever. The ancient Greek philosophies and their later brethren were searched and studied with unwonted vigor. Theories exceeding deep and somewhat satisfying were brought forth in profusion; but, unable to answer the eternal demand for proof, philosophy came to that state so admirably described by George Henry Lewes when writing of the victory of science. "Grand, indeed," he writes, "has been the effort of philosophy; great the part it has played in the drama of civilization; but the part is played out. It has left the legacy bequeathed by every great effort. It has enriched all succeeding ages, but its work is accomplished. Men have grown less presumptuous in speculation, and inconceivably more daring in practice. They no longer attempt to penetrate the mystery of the universe, but they explore the universe, and yoke all natural forces to their splendid chariot of progress. The marvels of our age would have seemed more incredible to Plato than were the Arabian Nights to Bentham; but while science thus enables us to realize a wonderland of fact, it teaches us to regard the unhesitating temerities of Plato and Plotinus as we regard the efforts of a child to grasp the moon."
The inability, therefore, of philosophy to prove its propositions has been the cause of its defeat. Science with its power of proof usurps the place of metaphysics resting on a material basis, and we are told by a great thinker that he who strives to solve "the mystery of the universe" is no better than a child who tries to grasp the moon. Such is the situation which confronts the man who has been awakened to that desire which, though sometimes dormant, is so strong in each one who desires to know "the meaning of it all." So perchance the young thinker, seeing the barren results of philosophy with its multitudinous theories, which are ever on the increase, but proof as far off as ever, leaves this pursuit as useless and unprofitable and: turns his attention to scholastic theology. Here again is found the same barrenness of result, the same lack of proof, the same hopelessness. Dogmas, many of such manifest absurdity that only the superstitious reverence of ages can bestow any credence upon them, excite the thinker's ridicule; pride of priesthood, and obstinate statement as fact of that which science has long ago proved untenable as truth,— these drive the searcher to a deep pity for the credulity of his fellow-beings; a stubborn belief in an anthropomorphic deity, so grotesque and so manifestly influenced by the ancient Greek theories of the divinity, compels him to complain, with Xenophanes of old, that mortals make their gods in the form of themselves. Science with its demand for proof, a demand which is ever absolute, is just as deadly to the vain fancies of dogmatic theology as it has proved itself to the flights of philosophy; and unless theology and philosophy can comply with this demand, one may well liken each of them to the child who attempts to grasp the moon.
