The Essence Of Belief Is The Establishment

Truth Is That Concordance Of An Abstract Statement With The Ideal Limit Towards Which Endless Investigation Would Tend To Bring Scientific Belief, Which Concordance The Abstract Statement May Possess By Virtue Of The Confession Of Its Inaccuracy And One-sidedness, And This Confession Is An Essential Ingredient Of Truth.

For Example, There Are Numbers Of Chemists Who Occupy Themselves Exclusively With The Study Of Dyestuffs. They Discover Facts That Are Useful To Scientific Chemistry; But They Do Not Rank As Genuine Scientific Men. The Genuine Scientific Chemist Cares Just As Much To Learn About Erbium-the Extreme Rarity Of Which Renders It Commercially Unimportant-as He Does About Iron. He Is More Eager To Learn About Erbium If The Knowledge Of It Would Do More To Complete His Conception Of The Periodic Law, Which Expresses The Mutual Relations Of The Elements.

The Essence Of Belief Is The Establishment Of A Habit; And Different Beliefs Are Distinguished By The Different Modes Of Action To Which They Give Rise.

There Is Not A Single Truth Of Science Upon Which We Ought To Bet More Than About A Million Of Millions To One.

A Quality Is Something Capable Of Being Completely Embodied. A Law Never Can Be Embodied In Its Character As A Law Except By Determining A Habit. A Quality Is How Something May Or Might Have Been. A Law Is How An Endless Future Must Continue To Be.