no 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



all human credence and all human action. 

 The convictions of the reality of Nature, 

 of the independence of Mind, and of the 

 being and authorship of God, in spite of 

 every effort of Philosophy to get rid of 

 them, either by declaring them unthinka- 

 ble, or by merging one in the other, always 

 return as the final no less than the initial 

 postulates of thought. Any scheme of the 

 universe, therefore, which leaves any of 

 them out, declares itself impotent, like the 

 project of an edifice which makes no pro- 

 vision for the corner-stones. Innumerable 

 such schemes have gone before, and floated 

 as bubbles for a while, but the first touch 

 of these Realities broke them into thin air. 



What the relations of these grand pri- 

 mal factors of the problem of existence 

 are, or how they are to be harmonized with 

 each other, we do not know ; perhaps we 

 never shall know; but, I think we shall 

 learn more and more of them, and, in due 

 time, by the instrumentalities that are given 

 us. We shall learn of Nature, and of Man, 

 so far as he is a dependant and denizen of 

 Nature, by that digesting of experience 

 which is the peculiar work of science. We 

 shall learn of Man, so far as he has a 

 deeper spring of life than observation 

 reaches, from its wellings-up into conscious- 

 ness at those rare moments of insight 

 which often seem so mysterious ; and we 

 shall learn of God through both ; i. e., as 

 he works with the stupendous forces of 

 time and space, which symbolize him, and 

 as he inspires our feeble loves and wisdoms, 

 which are no less symbols of him, with an 

 intenser sense of his own supernal love and 

 wisdom. 



But, we 6hall learn little of either if we 

 haughtily and peremptorily dismiss any of 

 the elements out of the inquiry. Neither Na- 

 ture nor Man is to be understood without 

 God, nor can God be apprehended by pure 

 intuition alone, or, save as be writes his 

 hieroglyphics in objects and events, or im- 

 parts new impulses of goodness to the in- 

 nermost soul. Tvndall, doubtless, caught a 

 glimpse of the inseparableness of these 

 elements when he said, " The passage from 

 facts to principles is called induction, which, 

 in its highest form, is inspiration," ' nor 



1 " Fragments of Science," p. 60. 



was he free from the same overshadowin" 

 truth, when, speaking of the possible solu- 

 tion of the ultimate physical problem, he re- 

 marks that, when it comes, " it will be one 

 more of spiritual insight than of observa- 

 tion." 1 For, if deity be, as it is some- 

 times said, the Spiritual Sun, the intellectual 

 Light, he may evade scrutiny, as the com- 

 mon light evades vision. It is the condi- 

 tion of vision, " the light of all our seeing," 

 in which all objects are seen, though itself 

 unseen. Besides, we know that, even in 

 the common light, there are rays which the 

 physical eyes do not see, which the inward 

 eyes of reason alone behold, but which, 

 if the physical eyes could be made sensitive 

 to their swift pulsations, might disclose, ac- 

 cording to Tyndall's exquisite suggestion, 

 a new heaven and a new earth, immediate- 

 ly around us, and " as far surpassing ours 

 as ours surpasses that of ' the wallowing 

 reptiles which once held possession of this 

 planet." 



Science must not deny the finer rays 

 which she cannot see ; she may remain in- 

 different to them if she pleases, and is, 

 indeed, largely obliged to remain indifferent 

 because of the very conditions under which 

 she works ; but, while delving in matter, 

 there is no reason for getting suffocated by 

 its gases, or stifled in its mud. For, in that 

 event, the narrowness and dogmatism you 

 impute to "the classes still called edu- 

 cated," to " the cultivators of sentimental 

 literature," and to " college-bred people," 

 would be most unquestionably hers ; the 

 opposition to freedom and progress of 

 thought that you deplore would be hers ; 

 and she would lose at once that devotion 

 to truth, whithersoever it may lead, which 

 is now her proud boast. Indeed, as I ob- 

 serve the world, pretension and bigotry are 

 not confined to the circles where you dis- 

 cover them; there are so-called men of 

 science who partake the fault ; and who 

 set up their own little area of outlook for 

 the sum of God's measureless world. There 

 are those who, because they may have at- 

 tended a course of lectures on mechanics, 

 or compiled a treatise on heat, or performed 

 a few simple experiments in chemistry, 

 assume, not that wisdom will die with them, 



1 Ibid., p. 100. 



