Part 3

XXIV

Whatever evil voices may rage, Science, secure among the powers that are eternal, will do her work and be blessed.

XXV

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.

XXVI

The parallax of time helps us to the true position of a conception, as the parallax of space helps us to that of a star.

XXVII

XXVIII

Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.

XXIX

The only question which any wise man can ask himself, and which any honest man will ask himself, is whether a doctrine is true or false.

XXX

Of all the senseless babble I have ever had occasion to read, the demonstrations of these philosophers who undertake to tell us all about the nature of God would be the worst, if they were not surpassed by the still greater absurdities of the philosophers who try to prove that there is no God.

XXXI

That which is to be lamented, I fancy, is not that society should do its utmost to help capacity to ascend from the lower strata to the higher, but that it has no machinery by which to facilitate the descent of incapacity from the higher strata to the lower.

XXXII

Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless against truth.

XXXIII

Misery is a match that never goes out.

XXXIV

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.

XXXV

Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect, are the qualities which make a real gentleman, or lady, as distinguished from the veneered article which commonly goes by that name.

XXXVI

The higher the state of civilisation, the more completely do the actions of one member of the social body influence all the rest, and the less possible is it for any one man to do a wrong thing without interfering, more or less, with the freedom of all his fellow-citizens.

XXXVII

I take it that the good of mankind means the attainment, by every man, of all the happiness which he can enjoy without diminishing the happiness of his fellow men.

XXXVIII