380 the president's address. 



between us and the anthropoid apes. If the analogies of our physi- 

 cal nature connect us with the earth, those of our spiritual nature join 

 us with the skies. The Power that rules the universe governs not only 

 us but everything in it, including the causes and effects of the pro- 

 mulgation of the Darwinian theory, and it seems therefore unreason- 

 able to be over-anxious because we cannot see how the breakers, or 

 appearances of breakers ahead are to be avoided. We are looking 

 at a single scene of the great drama of human progress, and though 

 I do not know what is going to happen in succeeding scenes and acts y 

 I have an abiding faith that what does happen will be right. 



But, if the great advance of science has produced some effects that 

 seem of doubtful benefit, of what incalculable value has it not been 

 on the whole t It has in may ways mitigated or nullified pain ; it 

 has procured for us innumerable physical comforts j it has lengthened 

 life ; it has built up the confidence and increased the energy of man 

 by causing him to believe that his control over the forces of nature- 

 may be indefinitely increased. But on these things I shall not dwell 

 for science has won greater victories. Its discoveries have furnished 

 subjects of contemplation that have solaced innumerable spirits in the 

 hour of misery, that have elevated the mean, and given breadth to the 

 narrow, that have shamed men out of selfishness, and added a new 

 force to every lofty and honorable impulse. In comparison with the- 

 vast extent of the physical universe how small is my material being, 

 but how grand that part of my nature that makes me intellectually 

 monarch of all that the mental eye can see. Into remote spaces 

 whence it takes light millions of years to come, I range in thought ; 

 I view the smallest object visible under the most powerful microscope- 

 and yet see further with the eye of the mind ; I trace the history of 

 the earth from its original completely molten state down through 

 successive stages of cooling to the present, and onward through in- 

 numerable seons in the future, by virtue of my power of intellectual 

 vision. In presence of the sublime conceptions to which such ex- 

 cursions into the infinite realms of time and space give rise, one learns 

 to look down on the petty annoyances of the day, one rises superior 

 to temptations, nature becomes a temple, and life a poem. 



