Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1886 — The Temper of Tolerance. [ARTICLE]

The Temper of Tolerance.

Whatever else may or may not be said concerning this age of agnosticism, it seems difficult to deny that its temper in regard to the inquiry after the truth is in many respects more hopeful than was that of the good old days of our fathers. The highest view which used to be taken of the attitude of a truthseeker was that he should refrain from declaring anything to be true until it was proved. It is only in modern days that we have learned to appreciate the fact that equally the searcher after

verity has no right to declare a thing false or impossible until it is proved to be so. ’ Tn hither ease a man may sincerely believe a thing or conscientious ly disbelieve it, but without absolute proof he has not the right to declare that it is as he believes. The genuine truth-seeker holds his convictions subject to revision upon all subjects concerning which he has not found complete proof; and this has come to be so generally recognized that even in the most bitter debates it is customary to preserve at least some semblance of being open to correction and conviction. “I have lived too long and learned too much,” said one of the leading scientists of New England recently, “to assumeanything to be false because it seems to me improbable. The commonest truths of science were all utterly incredible not very long ago.” It is the shallow minds which are over-confident of the infallibility of their beliefs. Amid the ruins of creeds and the general overturn of dogmas of the present day, it is especially needful that intelligent men and women keep their minds in an attitude r espectful and responsive to-

ward whatever claims to be new truth or a new phrasing of truth old as the universe. Science and ethics, however it be with art and literature, are constantly advancing; and it is surely onp of the most hopeful signs of the times that the minds of thinking men are today so thoroughly imbued with the temper of tolerence. — Boston Courier.