The Primacy of Truth

THE PRIMACY OF TRUTH J^r ATS MAY die of curiosity but men live by it. It is not \ßls unusual to hear a man say he would prefer death to the mindless existence of the insane, for human life is by definition a rational existence. The urge to experience is an urge to knowledge. From the days of Thaïes there has been a concerted and scientifically organized quest for truth, beauty and goodness but without truth we should be forever ignorant of goodness and beauty. To satisfy their need of truth men prosecute physical research and buy newspapers, build theories and break confidences, stock libraries and circumnavigate the globe. Truth is not a luxury but a necessity, and one of which we c'annot be deprived. Unlike some other of life's necessities truth is always available in an unending supply which cannot be depleted for it is as endless as being. We have only to open with the key of our senses that sample of the universe which is called environment to find at our hand a teeming storehouse of truth. Our minds need truth as avidly as our bodies need food. Almost everyone can recall some incident from childhood when his young spirit, craving straightforward answers, was rasped by the rank injustice in the artful dodges of teachers and other adults. Almost everyone can remember evenings of tireless debate which continued in his own thoughts into the lonely hours of the morning. No normal person accepts life altogether uncritically. We are questioning beings who experience an insistent need to crack the surface of things, to unravel the twisted skein of appearances. The question mark is an eloquent symbol of man's attitude toward the neighbor beside him, the universe around him, and the God above him. Think of all the questioning apparatus of the physicists, splitting molecules into atoms and smashing atoms into 259 260PRIMACY OF TRUTH electrons, resolving the material universe into its least common denominators; the questionings of psychologists, some of them striving to reduce the questioning mind itself to a cipher; of the philosophers with questioning distinctions probing, like so many scalpels, a slow patient progress to the core of truth. Humanity is marshalled in queues which are really spiritual breadlines, and the bread they are seeking is the bread of truth. There are men who tell us that we shall never find the truth we seek, that our search for it is a diverting, delightful, amusing-and futile-occupation. And there are men who tell us that there is no truth, or that what we have always called truth is merely the practical and pleasant attainment of our desires. If there is really no such thing as truth then there is no such thing as goodness and all the ideals of our civilization are evanescent bubbles inflated with the unsubstantial stuff of our own foolish pride. To say that truth is always a subjective thing which must remain a matter of personal appeal and choice is to deny it altogether. Choice is more unpredictable than the weather. Voltaire thought Shakespeare a savage, and Carlyle called Voltaire a madman. The Bureaus of Standards and of Weights are Measures and institutions erected to refute these theorists . Every normal mind knows that truth is an absolute and that all the enduringly beautiful and good things of life are rooted in it. Goodness and beauty are its fruit and flower. There are persons who so deeply appreciate truth that they strive for it constantly, and they are called philosophers. There are persons who so dearly appreciate beauty that they seek it instinctively, and they are called artists. There are persons who so cordially appreciate goodness that they pursue it insistently, and they are called saints. We know with Lord Byron that the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life, but we know too that we must eat of the tree of knowledge or die. The choice has altered since RUDOLF HARVEY, O.F.M.261 Adam's time. Today God comes to US' through knowledge of His effects. We shall know the truth, He told us, and the truth will make us free. What...