f their error, however, is natural and proves the
existence of the truth, and that it can be reached, and the newly
arisen prophet has a ready-to-hand stock of final truths of last
instance, eternal law and eternal justice. This has happened hundreds,
nay, thousands of times, so that it is a wonder that men are still
sufficiently credulous to believe it not only of others, but even of
themselves. Here we find a prophet clad in the armour of righteousness
who proclaims in the old-fashioned way that whoever else may deny
there is still one left to declare final truths of last instance.
Denial, nay, doubt even, is a weakness, barren confusion, mole-like
scepticism, worse than blank nihilism, confusion worse confounded and
other little amiabilities of this sort. As with all prophets, there is
no scientific investigation, but merely off-hand condemnation.

We might have made mention of the sciences which investigate the laws
of human thought, logic and dialectics. Here we are, however, no
better off as regards eternal truths. Herr Duehring explains that the
dialectic proper is pure nonsense, and the many books which have been
and are still being written on logic prove clearly that final truths
of last instance are more sparsely distributed than many believe.

Moreover, we are not at all alarmed because the step of science upon
which we to-day stand is not a bit more final than any of the
preceding steps. Already it includes an immense amount of material for
investigation and offers a great chance for specialisation and study
to anyone who desires to become expert in any particular branch.
Whoever expects to find final and immutable truths in observations
which in the very nature of things must remain relative for successive
generations, and can only be completed piecemeal, as in cosmogony,
geology and human history, which must always be incomplete owing to
the complexity of the historical material, shows perverse ignorance
even where he does not, as in the present case, set up claims of
personal infallibility.

Truth and error, like all such mutually antagonistic concepts, have
only an absolute reality under very limited conditions, as we have
seen, and as even Herr Duehring should know by a slight acquaintance
with the first elements of dialectics, which show the insufficiency of
all polar antagonisms. As soon as we bring the antagonism of truth and
error out of this limited field it becomes relative and is not
serviceab