RELATION OF THE FINITE TO THE INFINITE. 73 



ful whether the vital necessity of such education, to the people rather 

 than to the individual, and to the coming rather than to the present 

 generation, would be sufficiently well understood by the average citizen 

 to induce the payment of its actual cost, far below its full value as it 

 may be. 



It becomes, therefore, the privilege and the duty of the wealthy 

 among our citizens to provide this great want of our country, and to aid 

 thus most effectively in giving her that preeminence among nations that 

 every patriotic citizen desires her to attain. 



The Stevens Institute of Technology. 



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THE EELATION OF THE FINITE TO THE INFINITE. 



By N. J. GATES. 



ALL human knowledge is limited limited by the power of the 

 senses, limited by the scope of the senses, limited by the imper- 

 fections of the senses. The eye cannot see an atom, because of its 

 minuteness ; it cannot measure the sun or the stars, because of their 

 vastness ; it can only be trusted to take the approximate and com- 

 parative measure of a limited class of objects within certain distances. 



This conscious narrowness is realized in all the special senses and 

 all the faculties of the intellect. 



We have pains so slight that we never feel them, yet in their ag- 

 gregate effect they may be fatal ; and a fatal blow that shall at once 

 strike down every nerve of sensation would produce as little conscious 

 pain. Consciousness cannot mark its own beginnings or endings; it 

 can only realize intermediate stages. We have no consciousness of 

 how or when we began to see, or feel, or think, and we will probably 

 have as little as to their mode of termination. As conscious physical 

 beings (we are not discussing the question of immortality), the cradle 



