Know, then, that genius divine, not when the man thinks that he is God, but when he acknowledges that his powers are from God. We see, as they vanish, the standard to which we should refer them. Had we a history of music, from the war-song of the savage to the song of angels, it would be a history of the affections that have held dominion over the human heart. Had we a history of architecture, from the first building erected by man to the house not made with hands, we might trace the variations of the beautiful and the grand, alloyed by human contrivance, to where they are lost in beauty and grandeur. The mind, as it wanders from heaven, moulds the arts into its own form, and covers its nakedness.
Science is more fixed.
It is the natural world in the abstract, not the concrete. But the laws according to which things exist, are from the things themselves, not the opposite. If, then, the natural world is from God, the abstract properties, as dissected and combined, are from him also. It is only necessary that the heart be purified, to have science like poetry its spontaneous growth. Self-love has given rise to many false theories, because a selfish man is disposed to make things differently from what God has made them.