192 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



are as positively demonstrated as any problem in mathematics may be, while 

 there is enough that is still theoretical and speculative to incite investigation, and 

 this is not an unprofitable employment for the mind, for it is the source of all our 

 acquired knowledge. The pursuit of scientific study brings the mind into nearer 

 relation to the Supreme Power that has brought worlds into existence and guides 

 all their motions, through the operation of immutable laws. 



Our finite conceptions have never been able to comprehend but few of the 

 mysteries of creation. We behold — we wonder — and man in all stages and con- 

 ditions of his existence, has ever been striving to solve the great problems of 

 natu] e. In the earlier and ruder ages of his history this longing to solve the myster- 

 ies of the physical and metaphysical led to the development of various systems of 

 mythology, as those of the Egyptians, Grecians and Romans. Even the unen- 

 lightened tribes of this day have their myths and mystic ceremonies. The pres- 

 ent generation of Pueblo Indians retain and practice the formulas of that nature- 

 worship which has come down to them from their ancestors, who in the unknown 

 centuries of the past, probably erected the temples and cities whose massive ruins 

 have excited the wonder of archaeologists. These are but expressions of that 

 universal longing to know more of the mysteries of physical being. That prin- 

 ciple, which is universal and eternal in the human mind, to know the relations 

 and the causes of things, dwells with the savage as with the sage. The ancient 

 Hellenic mind invested the mountains, valleys, plains, and seas of Greece with 

 deities, all under the supreme rule of Zeus, the victor in the Titanic war, who 

 established the seat of his power on Mount Olympus, and controlled the lesser 

 deities, which Grecian polytheism or imagination had conceived as having sub- 

 ordinate control over the various elements of physical nature, as well as human 

 passions, thought, and action. Every deity in their mythology but personified 

 some phase of mind or matter, which the science of that magnificent people 

 could not explain. In obedience to that principle of the human mind to which 

 1 have referred, a desire for knowledge, they sought to solve the mysteries of the 

 universe, and our higher and more exact knowledge is but a stage in the upward 

 progress of the grand march of human investigation. 



The adequacy of the science of to-day to explain many of the phenomena of 

 physical nature has been a most potent factor in releasing the human mind from 

 the thralldom of superstition. The occurrence of an eclipse of the Sun or Moon 

 is not now regarded with dread, or as indicating the anger of the gods. The 

 astronomer, or the mathematician, is competent to foretell, without the gift of 

 prophecy, every obscuration of those bodies, total or partial, for a thousand 

 years to come. To us a November meteoric shower is no evidence of a war rag- 

 ing among celestial beings, nor does the comet that blazes athwart the heavens 

 inspire in us any terror for the wrath of a displeased deity, threatening destruction 

 to nations and rulers. The tornado's wrath may be terrible, but we know it 

 sweeps down upon us in obedience to some elemental law, and is not the dread 

 messenger of any supernatural agency. The rainbow does not come to us with 

 messages from Olympus, nor as a goddess to cut the last thread that binds the 



