The plurality of the human race / by Georges Pouchet ; translated and ed. (from the 2nd ed.) by Hugh J.C. Beavan.

  • Georges Pouchet
Date:
1864
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The plurality of the human race / by Georges Pouchet ; translated and ed. (from the 2nd ed.) by Hugh J.C. Beavan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    169/188 (page 151)
    cultivation of truth alone is sufficient for tlie good man.* That which is ti'ue^f cannot be evil, because it is in the eternal order of nature. Thus, free from fetters, and obeying pure reason, resting on all the sciences which can assist it, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and philology, the science of mankind will advance, like every other science, towards the conquest of that truth which is so much to be desired ; and sooner or later, by means of archaeology and palasontology, retracing its steps in the past beyond history itself, and beyond the remotest geological epochs of which we have any record, science will eventually discover the grand problem of the origin of mankind, if the elements themselves are not for ever engulphed in the depths of the ocean. * Boni viri nullam oportet esse causam prjeter veritatem. t [Yes, bvit the difficulty is to determine if it is true. We cannot receive anyt.hing as true merely because a savant says it is so. We must go on en- quiring- in a proper spirit; biit we must not put inquiry after truth in the same category with scepticism,— that cheerlessness of soul to which cer- tainty 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 endeavoiu* 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 inquu-y.—Editoe.] FINIS,