18 MAN : 



future. The present is thus intimately connected 

 with the past, as it is inseparably interwoven with 

 the future, and cannot be fully understood unless in 

 relation to what has gone before as well as to that 

 which must inevitably follow. The great business of 

 life — even that which lies most immediately before 

 us — -will be more fully understood and more rationally 

 ! performed the better man knows the place he holds 

 and the relations he bears to the plan of creation. 

 . Man's where has descended from his whence, and his 

 whence and his where must indicate his whither. 

 Where are we 1 Whence are we 1 and Whither are we 

 going? are questions which incessantly force them- 

 selves upon our attention ; and science merely seeks, 

 with all humility and reverence, to arrive at a satis- 

 factory answer. We cannot stem this desire for 

 knowledge, because nature has made it necessary that 

 we should know ; and whatever light can be reflected 

 from the past on the path of the present is a guide 

 to the existing, just as every indication of the future, 

 from a study of the past and present, must be an in- 

 centive to compliance with its requirements. 



Man has no intuitive knowledge of his natural- 

 history relations more than he has of other subjects. 

 The beliefs by which he is influenced are ever relative 

 to his knowledge, and the fuller his knowledge the 

 more harmonious, therefore, the discharge of his rela- 



