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MLVEBTOK, O M U W , THPB8DAT, MAY
R eason .
SOO o U d ’ HmO ~
NO. 19.
Thoughts and Deeds.
time to defend the good and pro­ tbe arithmetical formula, “once
lies in the subject, Dot in the ob­
ife ’ s more than breath and the tect the pure. He is too busy num­ one is one”.
ject; and we should always endeav­
bering hairs and watching spar­
quick round of blood,
The
idea
of
the
Unknowable
has
It is a great spirit and a busy heart-
or to formulate it in an intelligent
rows.—[Prose Poems and Selections
The coward and the small in soul scarce
its root in the relativity of knowl­ question. A thoughtful mind is not
do live.
'
edge. We know things only by the overawed by things which he does
' >ne generous feeling—one great thought
The
Unknowable.
—one deed
way they affect us. Subjective sen­ not understand, but he treats them
Of good, ere night, would make life lon­
sations are the elements of all ob­ as problems and tries to solve
ger seem
BY DR. PAUL UARUS.
Than if each year might number a thou­
jective knowledge. Knowledge be­ them.
sand days,—
he most modern specter that ing its e lf a relation, the Agnostic
Silent as is this by nations of mankind.
Nature, it is true, is wonderful;
We live in deeds, not years; in thought«
should
but
try
to
state
in
clear
haunts the realms of phi­
but what is most wonderful is that
not breaths;
terms
what
he
conceives
“absolute
losophy goes under the
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
the most intricate and complicated
W e should count time by heart throbs.
knowledge”
to
be,
and
his
unattain­
name of the Unknowable. Ghosts
phenomena of nature are marvel­
.
He most lives and goblins are done away with by able ideal of “absolute knowledge”
be thinks most, feels the noblest, acts
ously simple in their ultimate and
the best.
will
explode
in
the
attempt.
science, but, in spite of that, super­
elementary conditions.—[Funda­
—[Selected.
stition returns and assumes a
Every manifestation of nature mental Problems.
vaguer and more indistinct form in that affects us directly or indirect­
An Active and a Silent Spirit. the idea of an indefinite and inde­ ly can thus afford us material for
The Heroic Age.
finable something which is suppos­ our sensation.
Inasmuch as all
BY R. G. INGERSOLL.
ed to be an inscrutable mystery. existence must manifest its exist­
BY RUFUS CHOATE.
Some people fear it as a hidden ence somehow (if it did not, it could
ALCOHOL.
power, some reverence it as the em- not be said to exist), we maintain
mean by a heroic age and race,
relief e that alcohol, to a cer­ bodimet of perfection, some love it that all existence can at least indi­
one the course of whose his­
tain extent, demoralizes those as a fit object of their unaccounta­ rectly be or become an object of
tory and the traits of whose
who make it, those who sell ble longings, and almost all who in cognition.
character, and the extent and per­
it, and those who drink it. I be­ their fantastical visions imagine to
The existence of a thing implies manence of whose influences are of
lieve from the time it leaves the conceive it bow down and worship
the manifestation of its existence. a kind and power not merely to be
coiled and poisonous worm of the it. It is the Baal of modern phi-
It exists only insofar as it mani­ recognized in after time as respect­
distillery until it empties into the osophy, and even the iconoclasts
fests itself, and every manifestation, able or useful, but of a kind and of
hell of crime, death, and dishonor, of the nineteenth century have not
producing somehow an effect either a power to kindle and feed the
it demoralizes everybody who freed themselves from this fetish.
directly on ourselves or indirectly moral imagination, move the cap­
touches it. I do not believe that While denouncing supernaturalism
on other things, can be (directly or acious heart, and justify the in­
anybody can contemplate the sub­ in the religious creeds of today,they
indirectly) observed, described, in telligent wonder of the world.
ject without becoming prejudicec preach the supernaturalism of a
I mean by a nation’s heroic age a
qnired into and comprehended.
against this liquid crime. All you mystic Unknowable that lies be­
Absolute existence which is not time distinguished above others,
have to do is to think of the wrecks yond human experience, and do
manifested in some way means non­ not by chronological relation alone’
upon either bank of this stream o. not seem to be aware of their in­
existence, it is a ‘contradictio in ad- but by a concurrence of grand and
death— of the suicides, of the in­ consistency.
jecto’ and a chimerical impossibib impressive agencies with large re­
sanity, of the poverty, of the ignor
The Unknowable is like the fog ity. Hegel says: “Existence and sults; by some splendid and re­
ance, of the distress, of the little which the Anglo-Saxon saga relates
non-existence are idetical.” This is markable triumph of men over
children tugging at the faded dress- was rising in the shape of the giant
true if Hegel refers to an absolute some great enemy, some great evil,
»- o f weeping and despairing wives,
Grendel from the fens and marshes existence, or an existence in and of some great labor, some great dan­
asking for bread; of the men of ge­ of Jutland, and “haunted the halls itself.
ger; by uncommon examples of the
nius it has wrecked; of the millions of men . It is an intangible mon­
The unknown is by no means un­ rarer virtues and qualities, tried by
who have struggled with imaginary ster that hides the real aspect of
an exigency that occurs only at the
knowable,
for
our
ignorance
of
some
serpents produced by this devilish hings from the human eye and
subject does not justify the dogmat­ beginning of new epochs, the acces­
thing. And when you think of the
spreads an unwholesome mysticism ic assertion that it can not be sion of new dynasties of dominion
jails, of the almshouses, of the pris­
about all our conceptions.
known at all. There are many or liberty when the great bell of
ons, and of the scaffolds upon either
The world, however, does not problems which have not yet been lime sounds another hour.—[Open
hank—I do not wonder that every
consist of things recognizable, and investigated, and there are innu­ Sesame.
thoughtful man is prejudiced
of fog around or within them. Nat­
against this damned stuff called ural phenomena do not emanate merable things we do not yet know
Trouble comes from avowiug un­
of, but there are no phenomena in
alcohol.
from transcendent sources. Nature the world which ‘per se’ are unin­ popular ideaR. Diderot well saw
GOD.
this when he said: “There is less
is one throughout, and natural phe­
here is no recorded instance nomena are linked together by telligible. The vastness and gran­ inconvenience in being mad with
deur of the world are so great that
"h* re the uplifted hand of murder
causation. Causality, the law of the province of science is unlimited, tbe mad than in being wise by one­
has been paralyzed — no truthful
causation, is not a capricious ukase and after each discovery new prob­ self.” One who regards truth as
account in all the literature of the of an autocratic demiurge, who,
duty will accept responsibilities. It
*
of the innocent shielded by like a human monarch, rules lems will constantly present them­ is the American idea “To make a
’°'h Thousands of crimes are be- the world according to the maxim, selves to keep the inquiring scien­ man and leave him be”. But we
tists busy. The new problems will
Ing committed every day. Men ‘car tel est notre bon plaisir’. Caus­
must be sure we have made him a
be
born
from
the
very
explanations
are/his moment lying in wait for ation is no mysterious process; its
man—self-acting, guided by reason­
of the old problems, and they will
lheir human prey.
Wives are
law is demonstrable and explaina­ open new vistas of research which ed proof, and one who, as Archbish­
" hipped and crushed—driven to in­
ble. In accordance with the con­ we never before dreamed of; but op Whately said,“believes the prin­
sanity and death. Little children !
ciples he maintains, and maintains
servation of matter and energy,
hogging for mercy— lifting im- causation signifies the identity of wherever our inquiring mind may them because he believes them”. A
venture,we shall find that,through­
ring, tear-filled eyes to the brut- matter and energy in a change of
man is not a man while under sup­
out, nature is intelligible.
a faces of fathers and mothers.
erstition, nor is he a man when free
form. Fundamentally, causality
Nature
is
not
mysterious;
if
it
ap­
f girls are being deceived, lur- rests on the same evidence as the
from it, unless his mind is built on
' “'1 outraged; but God has no logical rule of identity, and is in its pears to us mysterious, it is a proof principles conducive and incentive
to prevent these things— no' most general aspect as simple as of our ignorance and of our mis- to the service of man.—[George
cenception of nature. The mystery Jacob Ilolyoake.
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