Assuredly, Humanity will not be eternal, and Science seems to prove that a time will come when the sun's heat will be insufficient to develop life on the surface of our puny planet. A time will come when the earth will have cooled down and become like our pale satellite, the moon, a dead star, where the debris of extinct multitudinous civilisations will disappear under the ice. But what matter! We have not to trouble ourselves about those far-off times. We have to think of the man of the coming centuries, and, at the same time, it goes without saying, of the man of to-day.
To lessen their misery, to make their existence less lamentable, to develop within them the sentiments of justice and brotherhood, to secure their moral welfare and their material welfare, that is our strict and sole duty. I recognise no other.
Now, there is but one way open to attain this noble goal: Science. We are plunged in an ocean of gloom. All is dark, unknown, disturbing. We have not yet understood anything of the blind forces surrounding us on all sides. We are but feeble beings cast into the midst of sovereign powers which overwhelm and bear us down. Now, to avoid being completely and definitely crushed out of existence, it is necessary to penetrate into the nature of these forces. Alas! we shall never penetrate into them, for it is madness to think that a particle of the whole can ever fully cognise the whole; but we may at least demonstrate some facts, fathom some phenomena, perhaps trace a few of the features of certain laws. That is enough to make us instantly the masters of matter and not its slaves.
Every new truth at once brings about an amelioration in human conditions. It may be said that our _happiness is made up of truth_. Let us suppose what is improbable, that is to say, that we have come to know all the laws of Nature, should we not immediately become all-powerful? Should we not be the sovereign masters of disease and pain, perhaps of old age and death?
Such, indeed, appears to be the conviction of the human societies which assign a preponderating rôle to Science. They have understood that there is no better future in store for the human being than that which Science will bring about for him.