be, as before said, that in every thing pertaining to the phenomena of mind we land sooner or later in the region of the unknowable. It is equally true that the measure of our investigation must always be the measure of our knowledge. Under the limitation of human conditions, and in view of that perpetual blending of light and shadow which surrounds even our most ordinary perceptions, it is obvious that no mind can expect to explore the whole realm of truth. The most that any system of thought can consistently claim is to stimulate the mind and to quicken our intellectual activities. Here and there we catch glimpses of the truth; but this is all that can reasonably be expected. It is all that the present work expects to accomplish. As Sir William Hamilton has well said in his treatment of the philosophy of the conditioned: "The grand result of human wisdom is thus only a consciousness that what we know is as nothing to what we know not."

"Quantum est quod nescimus!"

An articulate confession, in fact, by our natural reason, of the truth declared in revelation, that "now we see through a glass, darkly." Independently of this, however, man is a rational being; and as such, even admitting that all knowledge is but qualified ignorance, it still remains true that he must doubt to investigate, he must investigate to believe. Following out the idea conveyed by Plato's definition of man as "the hunter of truth,” the pursuit is the main consideration, the success comparatively unimportant. The disposition to think for ourselves, even if it fails in the realization of its brightest expectations, is at least a sign of manliness, while it also indicates a commendable appreciation of intellectual freedom. In our moments of perplexity, we may again and again have occasion to repeat

the last words of the immortal Goethe: "More light!" The demand is inseparable from the conditions of human thought and experience; and, as such, must come to us all. But let us not be deceived. It is a prayer that is always answered in a manner commensurate with the demands of the age and the measure of our receptive capacities. As Lowell has beautifully expressed it:

"God sends his teachers into every age,

To every clime, and every race of men,
With revelations fitted to their growth

And shape of mind; nor gives the realm of truth
Unto the selfish rule of one sole race."

With these preliminary observations in view, let us therefore endeavor to gain at least a partial insight into the spirit of the age in which we live. The character of the future depends largely on our estimate of the present.

THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT, AND ITS

CONSEQUENCES.

ACCEPTING Professor Tyndall's "Prayer Test" as a fair illustration of the scientific mode of interpreting nature, and at the same time bearing in mind the unlimited supply of theological thunder which this able and conscientious scientist has called forth, we are certainly warranted in believing that the time has fairly arrived when it becomes us to enter somewhat philosophically into the cause of so significant a phenomenon—a phenomenon which, to say the least of it, is remarkable as indicating in a peculiar manner the antagonism between scientific and unscientific views of the same subject.

Philosophy and science on the one hand, and theology on the other: it is an old feud, but never was it more strongly marked than at present, when the scientific yeast is penetrating into the innermost recesses of our consciousness, and when the expansion of knowledge is gradually undermining the foundation of creeds which until now have been deemed infallible. But, says some extremely conservative individual, it is altogether wrong to agitate a question which can only tend to weaken the bases of our faith, diminish the importance of long-established usages and traditions, and ultimately even to render the existence of religion impossible.

Such may and doubtless will be the expression of many, but it is not a statement of the truth; nor does it penetrate beneath the surface in its estimate of those forces which in their concurrent action make up the spirit of the age. As rational beings, we possess certain faculties, which, besides demanding a constant process of intellectual exercise, also necessitate an incessant and diligent search in the cause of truth: a search, too, which, although it will at times be subversive of the existing order of things, is nevertheless incumbent on us as possessors of talents which God has given us to use, and not to bury in the earth.

In a certain sense, it may be true that the sentiment which confounds the march of intellect with the operations of the Devil is a pardonable one. In another, however, and that by far the most important sense, it is undeniably a hindrance to the general cause of truth. For instance, as in the fourth century, when the belief in the antipodes was considered unscriptural, although it may have been excusable in the pious Lactantius to oppose the growing idea, the opposition certainly did not facilitate the cause of progress.* Or, to select another instance, when Galileo asserted the revolution of the

*In connection with the controversy on the subject of the antipodes, it is amusing, from our present stand point, to notice the peculiar views advanced by one Cosmas, who was evidently considered the champion on the orthodox side. According to this authority: "The world is a flat parallelogram. Its length, which should be measured from east to west, is the double of its breadth, which should be measured from north to south. In the center is the earth we inhabit, which is surrounded by the ocean, and this again is encircled by another earth, in which men lived before the deluge, and from which Noah was transported in the ark. To the north of the world is a high conical mountain, around which the sun and moon continually revolve. When the sun is hid behind the mountain, it is night; when it is on our side of the mountain, it is day."-See "History of Rationalism in Europe," by W. E. H. LECKY, M. A. Quotations being made by him from the Benedictine Latin translation of the original.

earth, although it was somewhat natural that the church. should warmly defend the Ptolemaic system of the universe, it can hardly be denied that the cause of progress was seriously obstructed, and the interests of truth made subservient to the dominations of an ignorant and oppressive prejudice. Similarly must the value of all unscientific and circumscribed opinions be measured by us at the present day.

The world has moved; the fact of the antipodes has been established, and, although we are not liable to be put to death for entertaining opinions contrary to the dictum of authority, there still remains a very large residue of that unscientific spirit which Whewell so aptly describes as "the practice of referring things and events not to clear and distinct notions, not to general rules capable of direct verification, but to notions vague, distant, and vast, and which we cannot bring into contact with facts;" and which, it will be easily seen, is therefore necessarily opposed to everything like a scientific interpretation of man and nature."

We have

advanced, it is true; and the ratio of our advancement has been in exact proportion to the measure of our knowledge and the progress we have thereby made. in, first of all, understanding nature, and then utilizing our discoveries. Should we desire to continue advancing, our tendencies must be in the same direction. Indeed, so truly is this the case, that we may well say, in the language of the late Prince Consort of England: "No human pursuits make any material progress until science is brought to bear upon them. We have seen, accordingly, many of them slumber for centuries; but from the moment that science has touched them with her magic wand, they have sprung