12 THE CONDUCT OF 



relegate to the region of the unprovable, even facts that can be 

 ascertained concerning the mind's ability to provide itself with 

 certain scientific tests of truth ; facts that must be taken into 

 account if research is to be invested with value. For instance, 

 those persons will stoutly defend their intuitive convictions of the 

 existence of time and space, yet cannot account for their posses- 

 sion of those intuitions ; they are obliged to admit that such form 

 part of a plan upon which the human soul has been constructed ; 

 and yet, whilst making this admission, they are seriously calling 

 into question proofs of the existence of a planning mind. In 

 truth, it is beyond the province of Nature, when studied in this 

 way, to produce order from such a mentally nebulous condition. 

 If they would but form the habit of balancing over against the 

 mysteries presented to them in natural phenomena, some facts 

 which they are well able to discover for themselves, concerning 

 the limits of the human mind, I think they would oftener be 

 more ready than they are to see that there are conditions of 

 things beyond the acknowledged power of man's mind to under- 

 stand, — conditions which are marks of an intelligence higher than 

 their own. Well may we all ask with Young : — 



" Who, motion, foreign to the smallest grain, 

 Shot through vast masses of enormous weight ? 

 Who bade brute matter's restive lump assume 

 Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly ? 

 Has matter innate motion ? Then, each atom. 

 Asserting its indisputable right 

 To dance, would form a universe of dust : 

 Has matter none ? Then, whence these glorious forms 

 And boundless flights, from shapeless, and reposed ? 

 Has matter more than motion ? Has it thought. 

 Judgment, and genius ? Is it deeply learn'd 

 In mathematics ? Has it framed such laws. 

 Which, but to guess, a Newton made immortal ? — 

 If so, how each sage atom laughs at me. 

 Who think a clod inferior to man ! 

 If art, to form ; and counsel, to conduct ; 

 And that with greater far than human skill ; 



