We all remember, then, the famous dispute concerning the shield, with its sides of different colors, which we shall here call white and black. We all remember how, after vain attempts to discover the truth by dispute, it was agreed to try the scientific method of investigation. We all remember the surprising result. Both parties to the dispute were right and both were wrong. Each was right from his point of view, but wrong in excluding the other point of view. Each was right in what he asserted, and each wrong in what he denied. And the complete truth was the combination of the partial truths and the elimination of the partial errors. But we must not make the mistake of supposing that truth consists in _compromise_. There is an old adage that truth lies in the middle between antagonistic extremes. But it seems to us that this is the place of _safety_, not of truth. This is the favorite adage, therefore, of the timid man, the time-server, the fence-man, not the truth-seeker. Suppose there had been on the occasion mentioned above one of these fence-philosophers. He would have said: “These disputants are equally intelligent and equally valiant. One side says the shield is white, the other that it is black, now truth lies in the middle; therefore, I conclude the shield is gray or neutral tint, or a sort of pepper-and-salt.” Do we not see that he is the only man who has no truth in him? No; truth is no heterogeneous mixture of opposite extremes, but a stereoscopic combination of two surface views into one solid reality. Now, the same is true of all vexed questions, and I have given this trite fable again only to apply it to the case in hand.