Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1884-10-30

solute recent creation, for they do agree
perfectly in their ignorance Of the origin OF
creatures and things. We may welcome
both parties to our bench in the dark. If
imagination can transform the bench into
a throne or mountain summit they are to
to be congratulated over such a creative
fancy.
For many years we have been entertained
with this inquiry: How could beautiful
forms of life from man downward ever have
come from the insensate dust? All have
said: "How could life come? How did it
begin? Did it begin in the present forms
or has passed through long notifications"
But in all those years there was an enigma
unmasked: Whence came all the material
without life? What billions of tons of
heavy substance! The earth alone is COM
posed of 25O, 600, ,O00,000 of cubic miles of ma
terial. Add to this quantity all the solid
contents of the planets; add to that result
the mass of the sun; and then the millions
of fixed stars, and we are in the presence
of problem Whence came all inanimate
substance? as perplexing as
THE PROBLEM OF LIFE.
If we say matter is eternal it never was
created, we have harmed our definition OF
Spirit as being the starting point of the
universe; if we may say matter was not eter-
nal our minds are burdened with the idea OF
so much heavy material as having been
made out of nothing. Thus man is in the
unusual situation Of being dissatisfied with
both answers to his inquiry, and he does not
know which reply is the less pleasing. Mat
ter must either have been eternal or have
been created. Man comes along with his
proud intellectual powers, and is inclined to
deny both methods of getting the materials
of the universe. He does not like matter as
eternal, he does not like to have it created
out of nothing he maintains his confidence
in his mental powers, and goes onward to
find other deeps.
So far as Darwnism is simple study of
facts it is entitled to the same respect we
show to any form of industry or observa-
ton; but it solves no mystery for us; it
leaves all the venerable inquiries of our
race still resting heavily as ever upon the
heart. The origin of life and of matter
PERpLEXED PLATO,
and from the fact that moderns stand where
Plato stood, shows us the hOpelessness of
the debate. If Tyndall had been able to
find spontaneous life he would have had dit
ficulty in showing spontaneous matter he
would have had to inquire, whence came
the inanimate kingdom and having the
power of generate living forms? He would
have reported no progress.
Toward solution of the universe moth
ing has been accomplished. Nor can there
be any hope that future ages will determine
any of the vexed questions AS law,
long ages of uniformity do not imply that
the uniformity will continue always. The
motion of earth around its axis has not
varied the thousandth part of a second in
two thousand years, but that offers no per-
feet assurance against changes in the next
twenty centuries. But the uniformity of
mental failure to grasp the problems of man
comes from mental untitness that will never
pass away. Education clothes the mind
with new powers indeed. 1t enables the
man to look more deeply into government,
law, science and happiness, but we cannot
conceive of any education that will under
stand how there can be a space that has
no outside to it, and how there was time
when nothing turned into something. Up
on these questions culture will have no
effect. The truth is, man was not made to
grasp them any more than he was made to
live without food or dwell under the water.
His mind is inadequate to any
THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE.
The simple fact that he can not accept of
the eternity Of matter and can not think of
it as having been made from nothing shows
that there is limit to the perceptive pow
ers of our race. 1t is thought by many that
man has been on earth a million years.
This is very probable or possible; for there
has been great amount of time back of us,
and why not be liberal in our allowance
to man? But in all that time he has made
no more progress toward learning how
there could be an eternal time or and endless
space, or time not eternal or a space not
endless than the dumb brutes have made
toward speech and the manufactures and
sciences. If man cannot conceive of space
as boundless, he ought to be able to think
of it as having an end. There ought to be
something he could say on the subject. But
the real truth must be that mans mind was
made for certain purpose, and that it is
valueless away from that special design.
There is an arena within which the hu-
man intellect is very successful. This arena
is immense, and as useful as great, and as
beautiful as useful. There is a broad band
drawn across the bosom of that infinite space
and that infinite time, and within this band
the human race is accomplishing wonders.
When we look upon this wide field Of the
actual we feel like
FORGIVING NATURE
for all of those outlying problems, and like
saying this vision is grander than our souls
are worthy. It does not explain God, but
it contains Him. This ineXplicability of a
Creator does not affect to the smallest de-
gree the fact of such mind, because mat
ter is equally inexplicable, but 10! it is
here; space is equally ineXplicable, but 10
we are in it! Time is as incomprehensible,
but 10! we have it's hours and years. God
is thus beyond our grasp, but He may be
filling our time and space with His pres
ence. Whether He is in all atoms or
around all, or is Himself all things, it
matters not here He is, the mind that ar
ranged all things, the wisdom that ordered
causes and effects, the presence that knows
no absence, the benevolence that wishes all
it's children to be wise, upright, and happy.
God is something to be weighed or meas
ured; God as a being whose biography
might be written is not here; but this i'm
plies nothing, for the biography of man
himself cannot be traced. 1t is in that visi
BILE band which we divide into epochs,
years, and hours we find the questions
which have answers and the seas that have
shores and the times that have beginning
and end Here is the reign Of law that
bespeaks law-giver. BY law the earth
turns, the sun shines, the rains fall, the
grass grows, the rivers run, the fire burns,
the lightning flashes, the wind blows.
Man perceives the myriad Of status written
thus by
a DIVINE HAND,
and he utilizes many unvarying forces. He
looks at himself and the empire of law re-
appears His birth, his growth, his food,
his education, his labor, his arts, his enjoy
ments, his laughter, his tears, his love, his
marriage, his death, are fixed by statutes