This inconsistency is here, however, only a side point--a passing
illustration of the slovenliness of the positivist logic. As far as my
present argument goes, we may let this pass altogether, and allow the
joint existence of these mutually exclusive ends. What I am about to do
is to show that on positive grounds the last of these is more hopelessly
inadequate than the first--that truth as a moral end has even more of
religion in its composition than happiness, and that when this religion
goes, its value will even more hopelessly evaporate.

At first sight this may seem impossible. The devotion to truth may seem
as simple as it is sacred. But if we consider the matter further, we
shall soon think differently. To begin then; truth, as the positivists
speak of it, is plainly a thing that is to be worshipped in two
ways--firstly by its discovery, and secondly by its publication. Thus
Professor Huxley, however much it may pain him, will not hide from
himself the fact that there is no God; and however bad this knowledge
may be for humanity, his highest and most sacred duty still consists in
imparting it. Now why should this be? I ask. Is it simply because the
fact in question is the truth? That surely cannot be so, as a few other
examples will show us. A man discovers that his wife has been seduced by
his best friend. Is there anything very high or very sacred in that
discovery? Having made it, does he feel any consolation in the knowledge
that it is the entire truth? And will the '_gladness of true heroism_'
visit him if he proclaims it to everyone in his club? A chattering nurse
betrays his danger to a sick man. The sick man takes fright and dies.
Was the discovery of the truth of his danger very glorious for the
patient? or was its publication very sacred in the nurse? Clearly the
truths that it is sacred to find out and to publish are not all truths,
but truths of a certain kind only. They are not particular truths like