On Mystery. 221 



been from childhood, that the Gentiles were to be excluded, 

 their reception was a mystery. 



It is obvious from the above, that facts may, in our present 

 sense of it, be mysterious to one person and not to another, 

 may be so to ourselves at one stage of our inquiries, and not 

 at another. Anomalous facts are distressing to a well con- 

 stituted and philosophic mind, and few pleasures are greater 

 than the unexpected reconcilement of a perplexing phenom- 

 enon with our theory, or what is the same thing if our theory 

 be true, with the general rule. But when, by an induction 

 of particulars, we infer the law itself, as did Newton that 

 of gravitation, it is a discovery in the highest sense, and no 

 earthly pleasure is more sublime. It is no wonder that his 

 frame trembled as the mystery that had brooded over a chaos 

 of facts was solved at once, and that he relinquished to an- 

 other the details of the calculation. 



But could all facts be thus reduced, and every science, in 

 the sense above mentioned, become perfect, would mystery 

 cease, and our knowledge become perfect ? To all practical 

 purposes it would. Nature is uniform, and we have the most 

 entire conviction that as she is to day, she will continue till 

 her dissolution. If then we knew perfectly, the laws by 

 which her sequences are regulated, facts would become em- 

 phatically of the nature of language, announcing what was 

 to come. It would enable us to exercise far more perfectly 

 the high prerogative of man, as the interpreter of nature, 

 and to consult more surely for our happiness as prophets of 

 future events. It would confer upon us the " nil admirari" of 

 the wise man, and nothing could surprise us. Humble as it may 

 appear, it is the only true and practical knowledge, and if we 

 think of attaining farther, we are ignorant of our powers and 

 pursue a phantom. 



But the human mind does not rest at this point. Men of 

 every age have felt, as we do, that there was a higher and 

 deeper mystery beyond, and asked after the mysterious pow- 

 er which carried the general law into effect. To the mystery 

 of general laws therefore, we now proceed. I have before 

 alluded to the fundamental principle of conception by which 

 it is absurd to suppose an effect without a cause, and by 

 which Adam was susceptible of the emotion of mystery ; and 

 it is by the operation of this that we feel the mystery of gen- 

 eral laws. A permanent and universal tendency is obvious, 

 but the cause is concealed. To solve the mystery of these, 



