452 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



supreme and exceptional, they insist that he is only to be 

 comprehended, if at all, in some partial, peculiar, and tran- 

 scendental way. In entire consistence with this hypothesis, 

 is the prevailing practice ; for those who by their function 

 as teachers, preachers, and lawgivers, profess to have that 

 knowledge of man which best qualifies for directing him in 

 all relations, are, as a class, confessedly ignorant of science. 

 There are some, however, and happily their number is in- 

 creasing, who hold that this idea is profoundly erroneous, 

 that the very term " human nature " indicates man's place 

 in that universal order which it is the proper office of 

 science to explore ; and they accordingly maintain that it 

 is only as "the servant and interpreter of nature" that he 

 can rise to anything like a true understanding of himself. 



The past progress of knowledge, as is well known, has 

 not been a steady and continuous growth : it has advanced 

 by epochs. An interval of apparent rest, perhaps long 

 protracted, is brought to a close by the introduction of 

 some new conception, which revolutionizes a department 

 of thought, and opens new fields of investigation, that lead 

 to uncalculated consequences. Those who have watched 

 the later tendencies of scientific thought can hardly fail to 

 perceive, that we of the present age are entering upon one 

 of those great epochs in our knowledge of man. Standing 

 at the head of the vast system of being of which he forms 

 a part, it is inevitable that the views entertained concern- 

 ing him at any age will be but a reflex of the knowledge of 

 nature which that age has reached. So long as little was 

 known of the order of the universe, little could be under- 

 stood of him in whom that order culminates. Those tri- 

 umphs of science which are embodied in external civiliza- 

 tion are well fitted to kindle our admiration ; but they are 

 of secondary moment when compared with the consequences 

 which must flow from the full application of the scientific 

 method to the study of man himself. 



