SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 443 



something somewhere^ and a point is nothing somewhere y every tiling 

 HAS some characteristic, a point lias none. A point is visible or in- 

 visible. Is it visible ? Then we can see that which is without parts 

 or magnitude. What is it we see when we do not see any part, do 

 not see any magnitude ? Is it substantial or ideal? If substantial, 

 how do we detect its substantial existence ? If ideal, how can an idea 

 have motion, and by simple motion become a substantial existence ? 

 Ai*e we not reduced to this ? Ideals produce substantial, or invisible 

 substantials, upon motion, produce visible substantials ; or that which 

 is necessary to matter namely, form owes its existence to that 

 which is neither substantial nor ideal to nothing, in fact. The entire 

 and sublime science of geometry, at one time the only instrument of 

 culture among the Greeks, and so esteemed by Plato that he is said to 

 have written over his door, " Let no one enter here who does not know 

 geometry," in all its conceptions, propositions, and demonstrations, 

 rests upon the conception of that whicli has no parts, no magnitude. 

 The old saw of the school-men was, '''Ex nihilo nihil Jit.'''' If each 

 visible solid owes its form to superficies, and each superficies its form 

 to lines, and each line its form to a point and a point has no form, 

 because it has no parts then, who shall stone the man that cries out, 

 " Ex nihilo geometriafit? " 



But lay the first three definitions of geometry side by side: 1. "A 

 point is that which has no parts, or which has no magnitude." 2. " A 

 line is leno;th without breadth." 3. " The extremities of a line are 

 points." Study these, and you will probably get the following re- 

 sults : That which has no parts produces all the parts of that which 

 occupies space without occupying space, and whicli, although it occu- 

 pies no space, has extremities, to the existence of which it owes its 

 own existence ; and those extremities determine the existence of that 

 which has parts made up of multiplications of its extremities which 

 have no parts. Now, you must know at least that much, or else stay 

 out of Plato's house. 



This useful science, without which men could not measure their 

 little plantations, or construct their little roads on earth, much less 

 traverse and triangulate the ample fields of the skies, lays for its 

 necessary foundation thirty-five definitions, three postulates, and 

 twelve axioms, the last being propositions which no man has ever 

 proved ; and these fifty sentences contain as much that is incompre- 

 hensible, as much that must be granted without being proved, as much 

 that must be believed, although it cannot be proved, as can be found 

 in all the theological and religious writings from those of John Scotus 

 Erigina down to those of Richard Watson, of England, or Charles 

 Hodge, of Princeton. 



Does any man charge that this is a mere logical juggle ? Then he 

 shall be called upon to point out wherein it differs from the methods 

 of those who strive to show that there is a real conflict between real 



