The Lake County star. [volume] (Chase, Mich.) 1873-current, 1874-04-30


In his last lecture In this country
Prof. Proctor gave his idea Of the at
tributes OF Deity deduced from as
tronomy:
"We come" he said, "to the con-
ception that there Is In the universe,
quite apart from all ideas of God,
infinite power. We have been led
then from the thought of infinite oc-
cupied space, to the thought of In
finite time occupied by events, and
now to the thought ofinflnite power ;
and yet all these ideas arc utterably
beyond our powers of conception
Why, then, dismiss the idea of God
merely because He Is beyond our
powers of conception? The material
ist Is right when he says this or that
doctrine Is incOnceivable, but he Is
wrong when he says will not admit
it; the idea of space Is inconceivable,
that we must admit the idea of In
finite power Is inconceivable but,
taking the view that infinite space
and Infinite time are brought to our
knowledge, we must admit the Idea
OF Infinite power.
"Why, then, stop short of the idea
of infinite wisdom and beniflcence of
of the design of the Creator merely
because 1t Is inconceivable to us? IT
seems, to me, then, we may fairly
turn from this to the consideration OF
the possible attributes of Deity, with
out being disturbed by the thought
that the very notion of the Deity-Oi
being infinite In existence, infinite
N tnAnftn In so
ceivable to US. Why, those very at
tributes that have been ascribed to
Deity are the things we have been
forced to see. We begin with In
finity of space, and 1t Is infinity OF
space we attribute to the Almighty.
We are led from that to infinity of
time thence to an intinity of power ;
az d 1t Is by that weare led to the mere
physical consideration of the qualities
Ofthe universe. Thus, then, naturally
we may turn to the thought of pos
sible qualities on the part of the
Deity and the way In which, In
some sense, his authority may be ex-
ercised over the dOminions of the
universe. Take, for instance, the
senses by which we become &C
quainted with the nature of the uni
verse, and let us remember how ut
terly feeble those senses are; on how
narrow basis we form all our concep-
lions of the universe. There are five
feeble senses; only one of those senses,
the sense Of sight, brings to us any
knowledge of outlying space; and
that sense existing only In two small
pupils which are to tell us of the uni
verse. We may, indeed, extend the
powers of the eyesight by means of
the telescope, but then we, In point
of fact q do not use the word In JEST,
see as through glass darkly, because
we have only a small part, a small
portion of the heavens brought out
into view; and it Is only by cOmbin-
ing the views thus formed, combin-
ing them In the Imagination, that we
can form an estimate of the real won
ders which appear; so we can imag-
Inc what might be seen If the power
of the eyes was increased to that of
the largest telescope, and we can con-
ceive what would be seen If the pow
or of the eyes was increased u million
fold beyond that of the largest tele-
scope; the wonderful displays of the
dark clouds and masses of matter
gathering In various portions of
space, the power ofrecognizing their
motions as the telescope enables the
astronomer to do, learning the har-
mony existing In their notions
That is something that tho feeble
sense ofsight only adequately extend
eel might bring before u.s."