THE STARTING-POINT 



special interest attaching to them in the present state of scien- 

 tific discovery. 



Having thus defined my starting-point, I would now with all 

 respect and deference ask the reader to accompany me from 

 point to point, and to examine for himself the objects which 

 may appear either near, or in the dim uncertain distance, in 

 illustration of what the world is, and how it became what it is. 

 Perhaps, in doing so, he may be able to perceive much more 

 than I have been able to discover ; and if so, I shall rejoice, 

 even if such further insight should correct or counteract some 

 of my own impressions. It is not given to any one age or set 

 of men to comprehend all the mysteries of nature, or to arrive 

 at a point where it can be said, there is no need of farther 

 exploration. Even in the longest journey of the most adven- 

 turous traveller there is an end of discovery, and, in the study 

 of nature, cape rises beyond cape and mountain behind moun- 

 tain interminably. The finite cannot comprehend the infinite, 

 the temporal the eternal. We need not, however, on that 

 account be agnostics, for it is still true that, within the scope 

 of our narrow powers and opportunities, the Supreme Intelli- 

 gence reveals to us in nature His power and divinity ; and it is 

 this, and this alone, that gives attraction and dignity to natural 

 science. 



