Good Books

Notwithstanding the errors they may lead to if carried to excess, both
these doctrines render, as a whole, most important service. It is no
bad thing that these contradictory tendencies should subsist, for this
variety in the conception of phenomena gives to actual science a
character of intense life and of veritable youth, capable of
impassioned efforts towards the truth. Spectators who see such moving
and varied pictures passing before them, experience the feeling that
there no longer exist systems fixed in an immobility which seems that
of death. They feel that nothing is unchangeable; that ceaseless
transformations are taking place before their eyes; and that this
continuous evolution and perpetual change are the necessary conditions
of progress.
A great number of seekers, moreover, show themselves on their own
account perfectly eclectic. They adopt, according to their needs, such
or such a manner of looking at nature, and do not hesitate to utilize
very different images when they appear to them useful and convenient.


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