When I speak here of truth, assuredly I refer first to scientific truth;
but I also mean moral truth, of which what we call justice is only one
aspect. It may seem that I am misusing words, that I combine thus under
the same name two things having nothing in common; that scientific
truth, which is demonstrated, can in no way be likened to moral truth,
which is felt. And yet I can not separate them, and whosoever loves the
one can not help loving the other. To find the one, as well as to find
the other, it is necessary to free the soul completely from prejudice
and from passion; it is necessary to attain absolute sincerity. These
two sorts of truth when discovered give the same joy; each when
perceived beams with the same splendor, so that we must see it or close
our eyes. Lastly, both attract us and flee from us; they are never
fixed: when we think to have reached them, we find that we have still to
advance, and he who pursues them is condemned never to know repose. It
must be added that those who fear the one will also fear the other; for
they are the ones who in everything are concerned above all with
consequences. In a word, I liken the two truths, because the same
reasons make us love them and because the same reasons make us fear
them.
If we ought not to fear moral truth, still less should we dread
scientific truth. In the first place it can not conflict with ethics.
Ethics and science have their own domains, which touch but do not
interpenetrate. The one shows us to what goal we should aspire, the
other, given the goal, teaches us how to attain it. So they can never
conflict since they can never meet. There can no more be immoral science
than there can be scientific morals.
But if science is feared, it is above all because it can not give us
happiness. Of course it can not. We may even ask whether the beast does
not suffer less than man. But can we regret that earthly paradise where
man brute-like was really immortal in knowing not that he must die? When
we have tasted the apple, no suffering can make us forget its savor. We
always come back to it. Could it be otherwise? As well ask if one who
has seen and is blind will not long for the light. Man, then, can not be
happy through science, but to-day he can much less be happy without it.
But if truth be the sole aim worth pursuing, may we hope to attain it?
It may well be doubted. Readers of my little book 'Science and
Hypothesis' already know what I think about the question. The truth we
are permitted to glimpse is not altogether what most men call by that
name. Does this mean that our most legitimate, most imperative
aspiration is at the same time the most vain? Or can we, despite all,
approach truth on some side? This it is which must be investigated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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