Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1869-02-24
History of Science and Letters.
Lecture delivered before the Mineral Point
Literary Association, Wednesday Evening,
February IL, 1863. by DY. n. Dalton.

+ verse that surrounds him, gives him his
present impressions; but all his recolIec-
tIons CT the past, and BIS hopes of the fu-
ture, are derived from world within. In
common with the rest of his species, each
one sees the same skies, the same stars. the
peasant attenuation of lend and water. of
cay and niaht; but there is also a separate
world given to us, which has its own pecu-
ilarItlrS, and which are for no two men
aux -peculiarities arising in the diversi-
Ltd events CT life or in mental constitution
! Tie external worida and the world of thought
+, are equal in their relations TO us-ever
! present, ever acting.
/ A conviction oft unity and symmetry of
nature has led men, from the earliest times,
/ TO attempt TO reconcile these two worlds to
/ each other; to make the one the mere re-
/ fection, the counterpart of the other. 1t
/ IS possible so to mould the mind as to bring
/ it in complete harmony with external ma
/ ture, but, as we are soon to see, man with
/ an mate preyerseness has too often and too
/ long attempted to make the external world
/ conform to his internal views, forgetting
that OF the one he is the creator, of the
other only the creature
In the infancy of Science there are MANY
reasons which lead TO substitute opinion for
absolute truth. They who have obtained
/ reputation for wisdom will always exert an
& u y a
the oldest and by far the most expeditions
system of philosophy, is that which receives
/ "a rale the dogmas of master, and will
recognize no phenomenon in the world, ex-
cept what is conhrmatory thereof. But this
substitution of hasty opinion for patient
Investigation leads, as experience has IA
tally shown in almost every instance into
error. Omniscience was never shown to
the human mind. The acutest intellect can
90 but little way in the interpre tax ion of
natural facts or natural events. We float
on the ocean of infnity, and unless there
be landmarks to guide us, we are soon en-
yeloped and lost He that is deprived of
every sense-who can neither see, nor feel,
nor hear, nor taste, nor smell, is dead-for
| it is the impressions that are awakened
within US by the exercise of the sensual
organs which constitute the foundation of
all our intellectual processes, and all posi-
tive science arises in the comparison of
fact with fact. You cannot insulate the
mind from the external world. It is folly
to talk of the internal genius of the great
masters of philosophy. Ii is with the fire
of genius as with the natural fire-there is
a wandering flame that feeds upon nothing
and deludes the beholder with its uncer-
tain and baleful ray There is also steady
/ heat which becomes the more intense as it
j. the more supplied with fuel on which to
exert its operations. The one, an ign,eS fat
attS, can only be discovered by the ignorant
and benighted the other we can see and
/ feel, and know it to be stroug to clecr and
strong to destroy. III ancient philoSohv is
full of errors and contradictions They are
the result of the system pursued-a system
which made fact depend upon faith, and in
verted the eternal law of the human mind
chat faith shall depend upon fact
Il = Z.
opinions OF antiquity, and contrast it with
the science of our times. On the one side
you have the most countless contradictions,
groundless assertions, and the most shallow
speculationS boldly put forth as truth. On
the other, principles put forth which are
recognized by men of every country and
degree of civilization.
The distinction between the science of
the ancients an ...4s u the moderns con-
sists in the system of investigation pur-
sued. They looked to the world within, we
look to the world without. Disregardiug
sensible phenomena they closed their ewes
to material things, and their philosophy
was, in reality, a dream of a summers
! night. Ever active in its operations the
human mind, if il cannot reason will dream.
1t calls up the images of thousand objects,
arranges them in landscapes that simulate
realty, peoples them with moving shadows
and then takes part itself in passing events.
In the absence Of any control OF external
objects, it INDUCES in imaginary scenes,
and possesses no internal principles Of
check.
The mute objects around US, the things
that we see and feel, are the guides of
our process of thought they control US
into reason, cut off from them we sink at once
into intellectual dissipation and our fancy
riots in a thousands scenes of folly. But
nature has 50 ordained it that these mental
| distractions are only transient events =
/ The opening morning and the rising sun
break in ut last upon the deepest sleep; ex-
terual objects once more recover their sway
and we become reasoning beings again
The history of an individual, is the history
of our species an abstraction from eXter-
nal nature ushered Ia the dreamy philoSo-
ply of the middle ages-a dream that only
ended when men awoke to q perception of
the facts and things around.
What then was the cause of this wonder
/ f8l intellectual phenomenon This slum-
bcr.ng If the mind Ger so many centuries I?
Was the POI tjca, rem adeliug which Europe
underwent At the breaking up Of the Roman
empire attended " .th a mental imbecility
in the uations2 X Is true ;ltat there is a
law to which we knoa no real exception,
that the mental cvolation of race like
that of an individual is an affair of time
I The Cloths and Gauls, the Vandals and
1 Huns, even the legions which profancd the
name of Roman and swaycd the destinies
of the empirc-recruited in Britain, in
Germany, III Turace-were savaEcs benight-
ed - the woods from winch they issued
The flame of civilization which had been
( kludled II Italy they extinguiShed, but a
. thousand years rolled over, and brought not
. single discovery in science, rot solitary
( achievement in literature. Can you not
( see that there Is a neral cause for this pro-
/ diEiouS anomaly. Fer nine hundred wears
/ the policy of Rome had been aggression.
/ bloodshed and robbery The most awful
! guer another-ConQUest is only righteous
when tempered with mercy. From Spain
10 Egypt, in Europe and in Africa. one ma
I ticn at,s- another had fallen before the re-
public The Mediterranean sea was filled
with the tears Of her victims. In her re-
lation with weaker people she set the fire 10
( destroy what the sword could not reach in
/ the language OF her own immortal hiSto-
+ riaa, she made 4 solitude, and called it
peace
We who have been taught TO admire her
( poets, her philosophers, her soldiers and her
5 statesman; who participate ia all the weak
/ ness of human nature grow warm oyea her
. glorious annals, and forget, in her achieve
mertS, her crimes.
The fate eff the doomed peninsula is a
i lesson u the world. and heiwho iii shelieves
. . rGtrioutlSe Justice NAV profitablv enquire