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SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Agency 

 Agiiosticisi 



2,096 years. In Lithuania linden trees have 

 been felled which measured eighty-seven 

 feet round, and in which 815 annular rings 

 have been counted." In the temperate zone 

 of the southern hemisphere some species of 

 the eucalyptus attain an enormous girth, 

 and as they at the same time attain a 

 height of nearly 250 feet, they afford a 

 singular contrast to our yew-trees, which 

 are colossal only in thickness. Mr. Back- 

 house found in Emu Bay, on the shore of 

 Van Diemen's Land, eucalyptus trunks 

 which, with a circumference of seventy feet 

 at the base, measured as much as fifty feet 

 at a little more than five feet from the 

 ground. HUMBOLDT Views of Nature, p. 

 274. (Bell, 1896.) 



111. AGES OF GEOLOGY Early Geol- 

 ogists Grasped Essentials. Altho subse- 

 quent investigations have multiplied exten- 

 sively the number of geological periods, 

 . . . yet the first general division into 

 three great eras [primary, secondary, and 

 tertiary] was nevertheless founded upon a 

 broad and true generalization. In the first 

 stratified rocks in which any organic re- 

 mains are found, the highest animals are 

 fishes, and the highest plants are crypto- 

 gams; in the middle periods reptiles come 

 in, accompanied by fern and moss forests; 

 in later times quadrupeds are introduced, 

 with a dicotyledonous vegetation. So closely 

 does the march of animal and vegetable life 

 keep pace with the material progress of the 

 world, that we may well consider these three 

 divisions, included under the first general 

 classification of its physical history, as the 

 three ages of nature; the more important 

 epochs which subdivide them may be com- 

 pared to so many great dynasties, while 

 the lesser periods are the separate reigns 

 contained therein. AGASSIZ Geological 

 Sketches, ser. i, ch. 1, p. 15. (H. M & 

 Co., 1896.) 



112. AGES PRECEDING HUMAN HIS- 

 TORY Momentary Life of Man. How these 

 grand contemplations enlarge the ideas 

 which we habitually form of nature! We 

 imagine that we go very far back in the 

 past in contemplating the old pyramids still 

 standing on the plains of Egypt, the obel- 

 isks engraved with mysterious hiero- 

 glyphics, the silent temples of Assyria, the 

 ancient pagodas of India, the idols of 

 Mexico and Peru, the time-honored tradi- 

 tions of Asia and of the Aryans, our an- 

 cestors, the instruments of the stone age, 

 the flint weapons, the arrows, the lances, 

 the knives, the sling-stones of our primitive 

 barbarism we scarcely dare to speak of ten 

 thousand, of twenty thousand years. But 

 even if we admit a hundred thousand years 

 for the age of our species, so slowly pro- 

 gressive, what is even this compared with 

 the fabulous succession of ages which have 

 preceded us in the history of the planet! 

 FLAM MARION Popular Astronomy, bk. i, ch. 

 7, p. 77. (A.) 



113. AGNOSTIC AGREES WITH 

 SCRIPTURE "Neither Can He Know Them " 

 (I Cor. ii, 14J No Prohibition, but a 

 Statement of Fact. It is no spell of igno- 

 rance arbitrarily laid upon certain members 

 of the organic kingdom that prevents them 

 reading the secrets of the spiritual world. 

 It is a scientific necessity. No exposition of 

 the case could be more truly scientific than 

 this : " The natural man receiveth not the 

 things of the spirit of God; for they are 

 foolishness unto him; neither can he know 

 them, because they are spiritually dis- 

 cerned." The verb here, it will be again 

 observed, is potential. This is not a dogma 

 of theology, but a necessity of science. And 

 science, for the most part, has consistently 

 accepted the situation. It has always pro- 

 claimed its ignorance of the spiritual world. 

 When Mr. Herbert Spencer affirms, " Re- 

 garding science as a gradually increasing 

 sphere we may say that every addition to 

 its surface does not but bring it into wider 

 contact with surrounding nescience," from 

 his standpoint he is quite correct. The en- 

 deavors of well-meaning persons to show 

 that the agnostic's position, when lie asserts 

 his ignorance of the spiritual world, is only 

 a pretense; the attempts to prove that he 

 really knows a great deal about it, if he 

 would only admit it, are quite misplaced. 

 He really does not know. The verdict that 

 the natural man receiveth not the things of 

 the spirit of God, that they are foolishness 

 unto him, that neither can he know them, is 

 final as a statement of scientific truth a 

 statement on which the entire agnostic liter- 

 ature is simply one long commentary. 

 DRUMMOND Natural Law in the Spiritual 

 World, int., p. 69. (H. Al.) 



114. AGNOSTICISM A Witness for 

 Christian Truth. The Pauline anthropology 

 has been challenged as an insult to human 

 nature. Culture has opposed the doctrine 

 that " The natural man receiveth not the 

 things of the spirit of God, for they are fool- 

 ishness unto him: neither can he know 

 them, because they are spiritually dis- 

 cerned " (I Cor. ii, 14). . . . The his- 

 tory of thought during the present century 

 proves that the world has come round spon- 

 taneously to the position of the first. One 

 of the ablest philosophical schools of the day 

 erects a whole anti-christian system on this 

 very doctrine. Seeking by means of it to 

 sap the foundation of spiritual religion, it 

 stands unconsciously as the most significant 

 witness for its truth. What is the creed of 

 the agnostic but the confession of the 

 spiritual numbness of humanity ? The nega- 

 tive doctrine which it reiterates with such 

 sad persistency, what is it but the echo of 

 the oldest of scientific and religious truths f 

 And what are all these gloomy and rebel- 

 lious infidelities, these touching and too 

 sincere confessions of universal nescience, 

 but a protest against this ancient law of 



