The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-07-15

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either end of the narrow span along which
the toiling intellect travels back and forth,
weaving its web of thought. We are like
men climbing up winding stairs to the
summit of some high tower, below are
stairs along which we have come above
are more that go out of sight; the bottom
and the top are alike invisible. ave know
in part" never the whole. Even the part
we never know but IN part. We cognze
nothing as it is in itself, not even the COM
monest thing of the senses. Our knowl-
edge is relative.
Sufficient indeed for our practical need
is the knowledge we may gain of this mid
die sphere in which our lot is cast, but as
Pascal has put it well "cxtreme things are
not ours any more than if they were not
We were not made for them. Either they
cscapc us or we them"
r.
Surely them he knows nothing as he
ought to know, who in the highest reaches
of intelligence is not humbled at the
thought how like nothing is all we know,
to what we do not know.
! have dwelt long and rcpctitiously on
this point in order to expose the perversity
| Of that cOncet of OC6y-mHch knowing which
| has been and is the bane of learning. Am
bition on the part of burning intellect to
| transcend the limit of our faculties is the
temptation that has bcset the path of
thought ever since man in Eden, aspiring
to be as Gods fell from his high estate, and
makes of most difficult attainment that
which forgotten sage said was the great
est wisdom, $40 be willing with a tranquil
mind not to know some things" =
And now this vain deceit of knowledge is
invading the field of physical science, inn
perilling all its highest interests by leading
it away from the modest and safe path of
experimental in which it has made such
solid and brilliant achievements into the
fog-banls of pIiori speculation Instead
of studying phenomenon and orders of Sc
quence setting down what they find, some
of the more ambitious Swans are about
writing new book Of Geaoses. =
Reading the writings of such thinkers as
Herbert Spencer, one cannot fail to see
how far they have wandered from that sim
pie experimental study of nature which
charactcrizcs the inquiries of Newton, Gu
vier and Franklin, and to which we owe
those solid discoveries that have so emo
bled ana enriched our modern world. For
one glory in science as the grand inherit
ance of our age but | say TO all young
students beware of that false science that
is pulled up with the ambition to know
everything that is not content to know in
part, demanding in the buastful language
of llogel above quoted that the whole uni
verse shall give itself into its hand, for ''if
any man Gin this way think he knoweth
anything he knoweth nothing yet as he
ought to know"
.. pass to second use OF science. II
cHc0VTdges II geligi0uS spirit. This sentence
may sound strange to some ears. 1t is
more or less the fashion of these times to
denounce science as the enemy of religion
do not say that men of science are all re-
ligious. 1t is alarmingly otherwise now.
What say is, the normal tendency of the
pursuit of knowledge is to beget a DISPOSE
ton favorable to religion. q
If one science fosters intellectual humility.
it cannot fail to lie a preparation for that
higher spiritual knowledge which is re-
vealed, not to the wise and prudent but I'M
to babes. The old adage Ignorance is the
mother of devotion is true one if we
mean that ignorance in which all knowl-
! edge ends, that consciousness of the limit
of our faculty of which all are aware who
know anything Gas they ought to know"
Reverence is the native sentiment out of
which religion springs and on which it is
built Religion in general may be defined
adjoining love of the Infinite All wor-
ship requires faith in somewhat beyond
our apprehension.
That which we know, as far as we know it
is on our level, we lift ourselves up to that
which we fully comprehend and generation
ceases. The object | can see all round and
through no longer fills me with awe. Hence
the saying of St. Bernard l think-"A
God known is no God at all" The truth
that lifts us to admiration is not the truth
exactly defined and comprised with a clean
circumference, but that which looms up
vaguely out of mists and hints at more than
it reveals. We know in part that we may
believe more and adore that mystery of be-
ing we cannot know.
First knowledge, then a sense of ignorance,
then faith, then worship; such is the sue
cession of mental states that conduct us to
religion and to God. What can better in
spire alteration than the study of Nature
Not fact discovered but opens territory
of limitless mystery to reverent faith. For
every question which science answers, a
hundred others start up which it cannot put
to rest.
Take this flower. Botany has classified
and named it, 1t can explain something
of its structure and the vital circulation by
which it grows. But tell me if you please.
These leaves unfolding from the same bud
on the same stalk are so differentiated that
one is pink and the other purple, or per-
haps green in the centre edged round with
white. A painter once asked how he mixed
his paint, replied, "with brains sir" What
brain mixed these paints, what artists pen
Gil spread out these colors and tints in such
exquisite arrangements. Science stares
helpless in the presence of this miracle OF
life, this potency behind the germ that
builds it into being, and may well bow
down before the mystery of the simplest
flowers.
Nor is there the slightest tendency in the
progress of knowledge to diminish faith ant
reverence: for while we watch the process
and order of nature and correct and enlarge
our conceptions, and to solve some things
that before were not understood we never
penetrate the secret of existence, (Which
dive we, soar we, battles still and lives.
Shall we for whom this age has made sucl
WOndrous discoveries in the fields of senst
and mind, who are brought TO explore the
world without and the world within, shall
we gain from all this enlarged intelligence
less of reverent impulse and inspiration tC
cXalt and expand the soul than did Tho
ignorant pagans of old times:
The growth of intellect will superccdt
faith or quench devotion, but the more i
penctrates the secrets of nature and til,
laws Of its evolution and ongongs, The
more grand and adorable will appear tina
nscrutible reality of which the whole vlsi
bic universe is but the advertisement
Science will only serve for better guidanc,
and support Of faith and knowledge be
come the Illuminated temple in which MAJ
converses with and adores the divine
Very much that repels the scientific
mind when it turns to the Christian system
is no part Of it at all. 1t is an accretiv,
with which men full Of that conceit OF
Overmuch knowing, which l have treated
; as false science, have overlaid the writer
, word. =