286 Sects and Science. [July, 



amongst the inhabitants of the wildest districts, where 

 communication by messengers is scarcely possible, a simple 

 wire doing all the work, we begin to see that the great cities 

 of the world are no longer to be the producers of invention, 

 and the foci of movement, and that we may have these 

 scattered over the world without the disadvantages of in- 

 ordinate congregations of men. 



We have the fullest faith in science, a faith which does 

 not waver, but at present we shall not dilate upon it ; we 

 say it that we may more clearly object to that class of men 

 who see also its beauty and its power, but have lost the 

 knowledge of the fact that much beauty and power existed 

 before it. We have a lafge class of men who know more 

 or less of physical science, and having seen the exactness of 

 many of its conclusions, look to its methods for deciding all 

 questions arising among them. It is always amusing to see 

 people with very narrow views — they are generally very 

 exact within certain limits; very certain, and very deter- 

 mined; very active, and often very successful, because they 

 see their end near, and have not far to go. But when we 

 find that their certainty is akin to that of the boy who is 

 sure that he will find the rainbow if he only gains the other 

 hill, and when the means of attaining a great object are as 

 small as the child's arms that stretch out for the moon, 

 knowledge of failure is the only success to be hoped for, a 

 knowledge that broadens. 



Our novels are full of descriptions of the small sectarian 

 who preaches his little belief in his little chapel, with little 

 knowledge, to a small congregation ; but we are not sure 

 that such men are the narrowest. Our novels have not yet 

 sought out the preachers of mere physical science, and ex- 

 plained the foundation of the truths so scantily dealt out by 

 them. They have not yet learnt to laugh at a national 

 faith consisting of geology, or astronomy, or mineralogy, or 

 pictured the consolations of the soul fed upon chemistry 

 and physics, or they would have shown how little these are 

 able to fill the circle of all man's rational hopes, or even 

 daily needs. The merely scientific man, whilst enlarging 

 his own importance and diminishing that of others, forgets 

 that he is simply doing that which he objects to in others, 

 and is forming a sect, and as such, therefore, we paint him 

 in our minds ; and as we desire to be above mere sectarian 

 views, we refuse to unite with him alone, but shall receive 

 him as one of the many who preach to us daily their partial 

 truths, and receive from us our partial assent. 



It is our part to advocate the views of men of science so 



