which are not borne out by any thing, and which give themselves out
as undoubted truths. And the reigning science announces, with
delusive solemnity, that the solution of all problems of life is
possible only through the study of facts, of nature, and, in
particular, of organisms. The credulous mass of young people,
overwhelmed by the novelty of this authority, which has not yet been
overthrown or even touched by criticism, flings itself into the
study of natural sciences, into that sole path, which, according to
the assertion of the reigning science, can lead to the elucidation
of the problems of life.

But the farther the disciples proceed in this study, the farther and
farther does not only the possibility, but even the very idea, of
the solution of the problems of life withdraw from them, and the
more and more do they become accustomed, not so much to investigate,
as to believe in the assertions of other investigators (to believe
in cells, in protoplasm, in the fourth condition of bodies, and so
forth); the more and more does the form veil the contents from them;
the more and more do they lose the consciousness of good and evil,
and the capacity of understanding those expressions and definitions
of good and evil which have been elaborated through the whole
foregoing life of mankind; and the more and more do they appropriate
to themselves the special scientific jargon of conventional
expressions, which possesses no universally human significance; and
the deeper and deeper do they plunge into the debris of utterly
unilluminated investigations; the more and more do they lose the
power, not only of independent thought, but even of understanding
the fresh human thought of others, which lies beyond the bounds of
their Talmud. But the principal thing is, that they pass their best
years in getting disused to life; they grow accustomed to consider