What the mathematician knows being absolute, unconditional, incapable of suffering question, it should tend, in the nature of things, to breed a despotic way of thinking.
So of those who deal with the palpable and often unmistakable facts of external nature; only in a less degree.

Every probability--and most of our common, working beliefs are probabilities--is provided with BUFFERS at both ends, which break the force of opposite opinions clashing against it; but scientific certainty has no spring in it, no courtesy, no possibility of yielding.

All this must react on the minds which handle these forms of truth.
-- Oh, you need net tell me that Messrs.

A.and B.are the most gracious, unassuming people in the world, and yet preeminent in the ranges of science I am referring to.

I know that as well as you.
But mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not force enough to project a principle full in the face of the half dozen most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think only in single file from this day forward.