Note 360 — Chapter IX
Hugh J. C. Beavan translation
[Yes, but the difficulty is to determine if it
is
true. We cannot receive
anything
as true merely because a
savant
says it is so. We must go on enquiring in a proper spirit; but we must not put inquiry after truth in the same category with scepticism,—“that cheerlessness of soul to which certainty respecting anything and everything here on earth seems unattainable.” This is the age for seeking after truth; but in how many different ways do men endeavour to attain to it! We must search the past carefully in all its scientific and natural facts, and as Longfellow beautifully says,—
“Nor deem the irrevocable past, As wholly wasted, wholly vain, If, rising on its wrecks, at last To something nobler we attain.”
This is the true aim of all inquiry.—Editor.]