SCIENCE. 



43 



can ever see any s'milar relation with our conceptions of 

 purpose and design, or with those still higher concep- 

 tions which are embodied in our sense of justice and in 

 our love of righteousness, and in our admiration of the 

 " quality cf mercy." These elements in the mind of 

 Man are not less cei tain than others to have some cor- 

 relative in the Mind which rules in Nature. Assuredly, 

 in the supreme government of the Universe these are 

 not less likely than other parts of our mental constitu- 

 tion to have some part of the natural system related to 

 them — so related that the knowledge of it shall be at 

 once their interpretation and fulfillment. Neither btute 

 matter nor inanimate force can supply either the one or 

 the other. If there be one truth more certain than an- 

 other, one conclusion more securely founded than an- 

 other, not on reason only, but on every other faculty of 

 our nature, it is this — that there is nothing but mind that 

 we can respect ; nothing but heart that we can love ; 

 nothing but a perfect combination of the two that we 

 can adore. 



And yet it cannot be denied that among the many 

 difficulties and the many mysteries by which we are sur- 

 rounded, perhaps the greatest of all difficulties and the 

 deepest of all mysteries concerns the limits within which 

 we can, and beyond which we cannot, suppose that we 

 bear the image of Him who is the source of life. It 

 seems as if on either side our thoughts are in danger of 

 doing some affront to the Majesty of heaven— on the one 

 hand, if we suppose the Creator to have made us with 

 an intense desire to know Him, but yet destitute of any 

 faculties capable of forming even the faintest conception 

 of His nature ; on the other hand, it we suppose that 

 creatures such as (only too well) we know ourselves to 

 be, can image the High and the Holy One who inhabi- 

 teth Eternity. Both these aspects of the truth are viv- 

 idly represented in the language of those who " at sun- 

 dry times and in divers manners" have spoken most pow- 

 erfully to the world upon Divine things. On the one 

 hand we have such strong but simple images as those 

 which represent the Almighty as " walking in the gar- 

 den in the cool of the day," or as speaking to the Jewish 

 lawgiver " face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend ;" 

 on the other hand we have the solemn .and emphatic 

 declaration of St. John that " no man hath seen 

 God at any time." In the sublime poetry of Job we 

 have at once the most touching and almost despairing 

 complaints of the inaccessibility and inscrutability of 

 God, and also the most absolute confidence in such a 

 knowledge of His character as to support and justify 

 unbounded trust. In the Psalms we have these words 

 addressed to the wicked as conveying the most severe 

 rebuke, " Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such 

 an one as thyself." 



And perhaps this word "altogether" indicates better 

 than any other the true reconciliation of apparent con- 

 tradictions. In the far higher light which Christianity 

 claims to have thrown on the relations of Man to God, 

 the same solution is in clearer terms presented to us. 

 " Knowing in part and prophesying in part," "Seeing 

 through a glass darkly," and many other forms of expres- 

 sion, imply at once the reality and yet partial character 

 of the truths which on these high matters our faculties 

 enable us to attain. And this idea is not only consistent, 

 but is inseparably connected with that sense of limitation 

 which we have already seen to be one of the most re- 

 markable and significant facts connected with our mental 

 constitution. There is not one of the higher powers of 

 our mind in respect of which we do not feel that " we are 

 tied and bound by the weight of our infirmities." There- 

 fore we can have no difficulty in conceiving all our own 

 powers exalted to an indefinite degree. And thus it is 

 that although all goodness, and power, and knowledge, 

 must, in respect to quality, be conceived of as we know 

 them in ourselves, it does not follow that they can only 



be conceived of according to the measures which we our- 

 selves supply. 



These considerations show,-— first, that the human 

 mind is the highest created thing of which we have any 

 knowledge, its conceptions of what is greatest in the 

 highest degree must be founded cn what it knows to be 

 the greatest and highest in himself; and, secondly, that 

 we have no difficulty in understanding how this image 

 of the Highest, may, and must be, faint — without being 

 at all unreal or untrue. 



There are, moreover, as we have seen, some remarka- 

 ble features connected with our consciousness of limita- 

 tion pointing to the conclusion that we have faculties 

 enabling us to recognize certain truths when they are 

 presented to us, which we could never have discovered for 

 ourselves. The sense of mystery which is sometimes so 

 oppressive to us, and which is nevermore oppressive than 

 when we try to fathom and understand some of the com- 

 monest questions affecting our own life and nature, sug- 

 gests and confirms this representation of the facts. For 

 this sense of oppression can only arise from some organs 

 of mental vision watching for a light which they have 

 been formed to see, but from which our own investiga- 

 tions cannot lift the veil. If that veil is to be lifted at all, 

 the evidence is that it must be lifted for us. Physical 

 science does not even tend to solve any one of the ulti- 

 mate questions which it concerns us most to know, and 

 which it interests us most to ask. It is according to the 

 analogy and course of Nature that to these questions 

 there should be some answering voice, and that it should 

 tell us things such as we are able in some measure to 

 understand. Nor ought it to be a thi ng incredible to us 

 — or even difficult to believe — that the system disclosed 

 should be in a sense anthropomorphic — that is to say, 

 that it should bear some very near relation to our own 

 forms of thought — to our own faculties of mind, and soul, 

 and spirit. For all we do know, and all the processes 

 of thought by which knowledge is acquired, involve and 

 imply the truth that our mind is indeed made in some 

 real sense in the image of the Creator, although intellec- 

 tually its powers are very limited, and morally its condi- 

 tion is very low. 



In this last element of consciousness, however — not the 

 limitation of our intellectual powers, but the un worthiness 

 of our moral character — we come upon a fact differing 

 from any other which we have hitherto considered. It is 

 not so easy to assign to it any consistent place in the 

 unities of Nature. What it is and what it appears to in- 

 dicate, must form the subject of another chapter. 



PROGRESS OF BOTANICAL SCIENCE IN THE 

 UNITED STATES. 



By J. C. Arthur. 



The sketch by Professor Bessey in the December 

 Naturalist of the work in Botany done in this country 

 during 1879 is very interesting, and offers an opportunity 

 of comparing the present status of the Science in Amer- 

 ica with its progress elsewhere. The article shows 

 which departments have been most cultivated, and indi- 

 cates to some extent the thoroughness and value of the 

 observations and researches. The principal activity was 

 manifested in Descriptive and Systematic Botany, and 

 that largely among Phanerogams and Ferns. Such ex- 

 amples as Mr. Watson's " Revision of North American 

 Liliaceas " and Dr. Gray's "Botanical Contributions" 

 are of the highest scientific value. These are accom- 

 panied by others which are little, it at all, inferior. 

 Large and elegant works like Eaton's "Ferns of North 

 America," Meehan's " Native Flowers and Ferns of tht 

 United States," Goodale's "Wild Flowers of America," 



