38 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



Almighty power, my answer is, Not I. If you should 

 urge that if the Builder and Maker of this universe 

 chose to stop the rotation of the earth, or to take the 

 form of a burning bush, there is nothing to prevent 

 Him from doing so, I am not prepared to contradict 

 you. I neither agree with you nor differ from you, for 

 it is a subject of which I know nothing. But I observe 

 that in such questions regarding Almighty power, your 

 enquiries relate, not to that power as it is actually dis- 

 played in the universe, but to the power of your own 

 imagination. Your question is, not has the Omnipo- 

 tent done so and so? or is it in the least degree likely 

 that the Omnipotent should do so and so? but, is my 

 imagination competent to picture a Being able and 

 willing to do so and so? I am not prepared to deny 

 your competence. To the human mind belongs the 

 faculty of enlarging and diminishing, of distorting and 

 combining, indefinitely the objects revealed by the 

 senses. It can imagine a mouse as large as an ele- 

 phant, an elephant as large as a mountain, and a moun- 

 tain as high as the stars. It can separate congruities 

 and unite incongruities. We see a fish and we see a 

 woman; we can drop one half of each, and unite in 

 idea the other two halves to a mermaid. We see a 

 horse and we see a man; we are able to drop one half 

 of each, and unite the other two halves to a centaur. 

 Thus also the pictorial representations of the Deity, 

 the bodies and wings of cherubs and seraphs, the hoofs, 

 horns, and tail of the Evil One, the joys of the blessed, 

 and the torments of the damned, have been elaborated 

 from materials furnished to the imagination by the 

 senses. It behoves you and me to take care that our 

 notions of the Power which rules the universe are not 

 mere fanciful or ignorant enlargements of human 

 power. The capabilities of what you call your reason are 



