added to observation, enables a man, like Newton, to discern the invisible link between a falling apple and a falling star. That same reason retraces the past, as if by experiment; and, with equal accuracy, forecasts the future. Nor is that all. Co-operant imagination gives eyes and power to reason, to see and weigh the ultimate invisible particles of matter; to measure the flight and amplitude of the infinitesimal waves of light. The grandest discoveries are made when we thrust our spirit forward with unfaltering confidence in

'Hope some truth to find,

That bears relation to the mind."

Lord Tennyson, The Two Voices.

Science, which we obtain by action of reason and imagination on our observation, guides our common life, traces our course when we navigate the ocean, and acquaints us with the path of our earth in space amongst the stars; but is as nothing compared with the vaster unknown. Describe a circle never so large, produce a line never so far, infinitude is on every side. Whatever knowledge we derive, by actual experience, is but a spark to kindle that more comprehensive intelligence by which we apprehend the universe-our place and purpose in it. We make no leap in the dark. Our commonest experiences continually surpass flesh and blood. The immensity of this huge world enters all our ways and paths. The present rich abundance of mysterious charms tells of coming distinctions, and more marvellous differences. Oh, what to us shall be the end?

Any one science is a sufficient study for our whole life. An adequate grasp of all the sciences is not possible to

any man. By the peculiar and advanced studies of many specialists, and their co-ordinate application by metaphysicians, we are aware that one universal unerring principle prevails in every domain of science -that matter and force, the organic and inorganic, all time and all space, manifest one eternal Power or Principle. Nothing is by chance. The chaos, spoken of in Genesis, and the finished creation; the breeze on an Alpine height; the evanescent cloud of a summer's eve; are not less accurately and systematically ruled than the vast combinations and immeasurable paths of the starry worlds. There is no weakness, no error, no loss, anywhere. Every atom is indestructible, the actuating principle is eternal, and the manifestation of force is always productive of infinite effect. We are even more certain of this as to man. No powers are fully developed. His latent capacities bud and blossom, but do not ripen into perfect fruit. We never feel, when a great intellect rises to a grand thought or vast discovery, that the whole purpose of it, or of anything else, is accomplished; we only see that an affinity is established with the infinite intelligence of the Creator; an affinity by which we shall see Him as He is, and things as they are. "Heaven opens inward.”

Accurate science is very modern. Not till within the last three hundred years have we begun to verify its application to the worlds. We are in a rudimentary stage; and though children know more, as to the actual formation of the earth, than the best-taught of their forefathers; children's children will live and move in clearer light. Out of this greater knowledge a new argument is extracted: for proud as we are of the vast

circle which the sciences begin to occupy; and conscious that we are becoming capable of the impossible; the universe, immeasurably vast, is barely touched by what we have done. Scientists and philosophers are passing from victory to victory; human resources are coming into affinity with the Infinite; and advance is by force of new impulse. Thus we have not less a demonstration that our state is elementary, than a promise and pledge that our future is boundless.

Anyway, knowledge of Nature's operation and meaning; of facts, concerning ourselves, whether we be on the earth or not; contain all the elements of profitable thought. Even those facts which come to us as by unclean birds feeding Elijah, seed the mind with prophetic power; and physical experiments, sent out from the ark of our mind to go to and fro on the earth, always return as a dove with an olive branch of information concerning new things and an ever-renewing world. Those men do most good who unite the remote parts of knowledge; and by happy hypothesis, with the lightning flash of penetrative genius, weld them into some great conquering principle-a principle like that, the conservation of energy, by which we know, as to ourselves, that the Supreme

"Ne'er dooms to waste the strength He deigns impart.'

In certain respects, nothing is new. That part of science which concerns the laws and modes of thought, represents things old as the hills, and proves that the mind of man is not less accurately ordered than are the courses of the stars. If the potentiality of cosmos lay in chaos, so did our thought; but neither could do more

than obey the realities which they represented. The reality behind our mental personality is not less than the reality which underlies all matter: matter has not completed all its combinations, our mind has not perfected all its thought. "The secrets of wisdom," said Zophar the Naamathite, "are double to that which is."

Mental science, applied to history, shows that there is no race of men which has not, at least, some thought and hope of a future country. All minds early encourage and cherish "some tranquillizing belief as to the future balances, and the hieroglyphic meanings of human sufferings." 1 Fairy tales, myths, fables, ghost stories, are in every land, and during all ages. No eye discerns their origin, but every mind sees their beauty, and the mind is charmed. They are not to be taken as false because not understood; indeed, the reality they veil may be greatly the basis of our knowledge. Some facts we cannot comprehend because they have not been explained; some, if explained a thousand times, our mind is too narrow to comprehend; and yet they are true. Legends of Happy Islands, in that far-off horizon whither the sun goes to rest; of Paradises, of pleasant rivers, of lands where even the deserts are full of beauty, won by the brave, enjoyed by the true ;-these anticipated treasures of future felicity gird us with charms of strange delight. The superstitions, even, which men place between themselves and the supreme object of their adoration; those giants whom Nature is said to obey, whose hands reach the heavens whilst their feet touch the earth; are not "all vanity and hollowness, dust and ashes, vapour and a bubble." They imply a comparison of man with Some1 De Quincey, “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.”

thing higher than himself, a Something that gives the sense of immortality, and provides that reality; for in nature nothing is false.

These day-dreams and beautiful pictures, imagined and painted by the heart, despite the inevitable grave, crown the grim brow of Death with glory. Were they not raised by our intellectual faculties into grand conceptions, we might think that some juggle darkened and deluded our reason; but high harmonies of thought turn the darkness into light, and some ancient symbolic myths are as stars, or a pillar of cloud by day, by night a pillar of fire. Had no star ever appeared in the heavens, to man would be no heavens of glory; and his spirit might lie in anguish on the gloomy earth shut in as by material arch; but stars have appeared, daystars from on high. Our thoughts about the celestial fields of light that lie around the throne of God; and the glories, the powers, the mystic far-reaching influences of many worlds (Job xxxviii. 31); have taken to themselves a marvellous science. There is in the height and in the depth a wonderfulness of being, a vastness that surpasses every finite comprehension, a future of which all that we know and possess is but a rudiment.

Science is not for the narrowing, but enlargement, of faith the more we know, the more we believe. The five greatest men who added most to science-Copernicus, Tycho Brahé, Galileo, Kepler, Newton-very different men, some rich, some poor, were alike in being devout; and would gladly pass through everything to their Lord.

"My God! my God! let me for once look on Thee
As though nought else existed we alone!"

Robert Browning, Pauline.