Aneel Capel Ve 
INTELLECTUAL SYMBOLISM: A BASIS FOR SCIENCE. 
BY PLINY EARLE CHASE, M.A. 
Read, December 5th, 1862. 
PREHEFEFACH. 
“The nearer we come to Nature, the more does it seem to us that all our intellectual endowments are merely the echo of 
the Almighty Mind, and that the eternal archetypes of all manifestations of thought in man are found in the Creation of 
which he is the crowning work.”—Agassiz: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. X, p. 94. 
HNN NTT DNS DISS DOF] DINT AN OTN SI 
Genesis 1 : 27. 
THE intimate connection of religion and true philosophy is attested by the profound 
wisdom embodied in the teachings of the Bible, as well as by the most valuable records of 
all past history, yet there are many who unwisely try to divorce them, or to regard them 
as essentially antagonistic. But the tendency to inquiry is so natural, that any attempt 
to resist or suppress it will not only always prove futile, but it will even stimulate curi- 
osity to an increased activity, which may be exerted in secret, and therefore, with greater 
danger of leading the investigator into pernicious error. 
Those who discourage the discussion of religious or other dogmas, not only act in direct 
opposition to Paul’s precept to the Thessalonians, “ Prove all things; hold fast that which 
is good,” but their action may be unwittingly instrumental in spreading the very evil that 
they wish to remove. ‘Their opponents charge them at once with fearing investigation, 
and the plausibility of the charge often enlists the ardent sympathies of youthful inquirers, 
inducing them to listen to subtle reasonings that are cloaked in a fallacy too skilfully 
woven for them to unravel, and the fear of opprobrium deters them from discussing the 
arguments with those who might easily expose the fallacy. 
True faith and true reason are handmaidens,—reason acknowledging its dependence on 
faith as the source of its authority, and faith demanding the assent of reason to no absur- 
dities,—however important it may regard a belief in the mysterious and the incompre- 
hensible. Both faith and reason may be often strengthened by the study of mysteries, 
and by forming such dim conceptions of their significance as may be traced in their faint 
shadowings, while both will be surely weakened if they become entirely self-reliant. 
VOL, X1I.—59 
