IxXXVi REPORT — 1855. 



degree of development, which casts some rays forward on questions of higher 

 import than those which she can fully answer. It is in vain that we try to 

 draw definite lines between the Physical and the Metaphysical, — between the 

 Secular and the Religious. There is a felt relation between the laws which 

 obtain in each — such indeed as we might expect to find in provinces of a 

 universal empire. The consequence is, that in every speculation on those 

 higher questions on which men will and must speculate — in every system of 

 Philosophy, whether ancient or modern, they draw not merely their illustra- 

 tions, but not a few of their conclusions from science, or from that which 

 passes by the name. If, therefore, her discoveries, and above all, her 

 methods and her history be but partially and superficially understood, the 

 popular mind will be a perpetual prey to the most specious forms of error. 

 But that history teaches caution. It is full of warning as well as of example. 

 In being a history of the progress of knowledge, it is a history also of the 

 obstructions which Knowledge has encountered, and an index of those to 

 which she is still exposed. The influence of opinions and theories precon- 

 ceived, — of rash conclusions, and of false analogies, has been, and still is, a 

 perpetual source of danger. So much is this the case, that we soon learn to 

 receive with extreme caution the inferences drawn by men of science from 

 the facts they may bring to light, wherever these inferences touch upon other 

 departments of knowledge. The relation in which a new fact or law stands 

 to others is seldom at once rightly understood. It is only through fightings 

 and controversies of every kind that it gradually finds its place; and be- 

 comes, not unfrequently, an instrument in defence of truths which at first it 

 was supposed to sap and undermine. I do not mean to say that the full 

 meaning of the discoveries of science is always brought to light. Far from 

 it. It would be more true to say that their ultimate meaning is never 

 reached ; and that for every question which Science answers, she propounds 

 another which it is beyond her powers to solve. But in this we may see the 

 strongest of ail arguments against our entertaining any fear of science, as 

 regards the interests of religion. It is sometimes proudly asked, who shall 

 set bounds to Science, or to the widening circle of her horizon ? But why 

 chould we try to do so, when it is enough to observe that that horizon, how- 

 ever it may be enlarged, is an horizon still — a circle beyond which, however 

 wide it be, there shine, like fixed stars without a parallax, eternal problems in 

 which the march of science never shows any change of place. If there be one 

 fact of which Science reminds us more perpetually than another, it is that we 

 have faculties impelling us to ask questions which we have no powers enabling 

 us to answer. What better lesson of humility than this — what better indi- 

 cation of the reasonableness of looking to a state in which this discrepancy 

 shall be done away ; and when we shall " know, even as we are known !" 



But, Gentlemen, I have already detained you too long, and occupied your 

 time far less profitably than it would have been occupied by many who are 

 present on this occasion. The hospitality of this great city will aflfbrd you, 

 I trust, a pleasant, and your own exertions will secure a profitable, Meeting. 

 You may well engage in its business and discussions, with a sense of the 

 high interest and value of your pursuits — not less interesting in themselves, 

 — not less conducive to the progress and happiness of mankind, — not less 

 tasking the noblest faculties of the mind, than those which engross the atten- 

 tion of jurists, of soldiers or of statesmen, when their motives are the purest, 

 and their objects are the best. 



