170 THE UNIVERSE 



Different men have different casts of mind and 

 different natural aptitudes. Some are natural re- 

 ceivers of truths, and others are natural non-con- 

 ductors of certain truths. 



There are two eminent illustrations of this fact, it 

 is said, in the immortal Sir Isaac Newton and John 

 Milton, whose names are equally historic and illus- 

 trious for their learning and culture. For it is said 

 that Newton could not appreciate " Paradise Lost," 

 and Milton could see nothing in "The Principia." 

 This was not to the discredit of either of these books, 

 nor was it a reflection upon the technical learning of 

 either man. Neither was attuned to the message 

 which the other brought to humanity and it proves 

 that in order to apprehend truth in any quarter a 

 man must be sympathetically disposed toward it. 



Milton had no mind for mathematics, nor Newton 

 for poetry. So the wisest philosophers like Herbert 

 Spencer may go to religion and find nothing there 

 but the abstruce and unknowable. Spencer's mind 

 dwells on the phenomena of matter and material 

 senses only. It is said nearly every great thinker 

 has some central thought fixed firmly in his mind. 

 The central thought of Plato is the theory of ideas 

 the assertion of the apparitional character of the 

 seemingly real world. The central thought of Pascal 

 is that of human intelligence confronting the uni- 

 verse and strangled by it inexorable tragedies. The 

 central thought of Schopenhauer is the absurdity of 

 life, and the central thought of Herbert Spencer is 

 the evolution of the material universe. 



