THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 225 



admits of no comparison with the copy. The truth of 

 Nature is the system-maker's reading of her, deduced 

 from abstract principles conceived in his own breast, and 

 shaped together by his own mental constructive power. 

 But that the systems do not read either the truth or reality 

 of Nature is proved by their contradictions with each 

 other, as well as by their own internal inconsistencies. 



2. Science will bring not only material but spiritual 

 comforts and alleviation. It will bring both truth and 

 fruit : truth, in itself ; fruit, from its indefinite adapta- 

 bility to the material wants and wishes of men, as well 

 as from its further application to the conduct of life. 

 Science in itself is the true, in its application is the good. 

 The truths of science will save you ; in the sequel they 

 will save the world ; they alone can do so. They will 

 save your soul, in the only sense in which it can be 

 saved by pointing out to it the right way of life ; by 

 giving to it a fuller, freer, better life on the earth, the 

 only certain theatre of its existence and activity ; by 

 giving to it light, by supplying it with sustaining and 

 strengthening truths ; in a word, by showing it the 

 universal empire of law, which embraces both it and the 

 cosmos, the knowledge of which is the sum of truth, and 

 to accommodate ourselves to which is the sum of wisdom 

 and virtue. And this truth will not only save you, it 

 will set you free, as it is ever the work of truth to do. 

 It will set you free by delivering you from the vain fears 

 and terrors and superstitions which so long held the soul 

 of man in degrading bondage, adding their formidable 

 terrors to the miseries of life. It will further set you 

 free within the bounds of natural law, by enabling you 

 to accomplish your desired ends the surer the more 

 you know the unvarying course of things, to which on 

 the one hand your aims must be accommodated, but 



