578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



comes a truism if it means merely that all knowledge is valuable ; the 

 old maxim, that in the knowledge of God is life, loses all its grandeur 

 if it is interpreted to mean merely that the more things you know the 

 more dangers you will be in a condition to avoid. Can we not, then, 

 give more precision, more detiniteness, to the notion of the knowledge 

 of God ? 



The notion is to. be limited in two ways, one of which has been 

 partially indicated already. The scientific school themselves save us 

 the trouble of explaining the first of these limitations ; it is they who, 

 in this age, have made clear to every one the difl:erence between the 

 study of the universe and mere universal study. When they tell us 

 in the very language of theology that all hope and all happiness lies 

 in the knowledge of Nature, that this is a treasure to be valued above 

 rubies and precious stones, how do they limit the word Nature ? They 

 mean it certainly to include the whole universe. What is it, then, 

 that they exclude ? One would fancy at first sight that they are 

 merely praising knowledge in general, and that they are not particu- 

 lar about kinds of knowledge. Yet we know that they are remarka- 

 bly exclusive in their notions of knowledge, and that they are as 

 vehement in condemning some sorts as in recommending others. 

 What is there, then , that can possibly be studied besides the uni- 

 verse ? 



There is something which sets itself up as a just reflection of the 

 universe, and which it is possible to study as if it were the universe 

 itself; that is, the multitude of traditional unscientific opinions about 

 the universe. These opinions are, in one sense, part of the universe ; 

 to study them from the historic point of view is to study the universe ; 

 but when they are assumed as an accurate reflection of it so as to di- 

 vert attention from the original, as they are by all the votaries of 

 authority or tradition, then they may be regarded as a spurious uni- 

 verse outside and apart from the real one, and such students of ojjin- 

 ion may be said to study and yet not to study the universe. 



This spurious universe is almost as great as the genuine one. There 

 are many profoundly learned men whose whole learning i-elates to it, and 

 has no concern whatever with reality. The simplest peasant who, from 

 living much in the open air, has found for himself, unconsciously, some 

 rules to guide him in divining the weather, knows something about the 

 real universe ; but an indefatigable student, who has stored a prodi- 

 gious memory with what the schoolmen have thought, what the phi- 

 losophers have thought, what the Fathers have thought, may yet have 

 no real knowledge ; he may have been busy only with the reflected 

 universe. Not that the thoughts of dead thinkers stored up in books 

 are not part of the universe as well as wind and rain ; not tliat they 

 may not repay study quite as well ; they are deposits of the human 

 mind, and by studying them much may be discovered about the hu- 

 man mind, the ways of its operation, the stages of its development. 



