Page:On Science, its Divine Origin, Operation, Use and End.pdf/26

22 know nothing, than to have all knowledge, and yet not live accordingly. Let every one, therefore, take heed to his scientific attainments, of whatsoever kind they be, that they may always be directed to their proper end; recollecting, that as the right use of science makes an angel, and conducts man to the temple of wisdom, of peace and of bliss, so the abuse of it makes an infernal, and plunges man into the dark abodes of insanity, of restlessness, and of eternal misery.

All science properly belongs unto God alone, because, being derived from Him, He must needs be its continual and sole proprietor. But God has given, and continually gives, science unto man; and therefore man may, in one sense, be called its proprietor, as receiving it from God. Nevertheless, God gives science to man, not for individual benefit only, but for public use; and therefore science, according to this view, is the property of the public, and not of the individual who possesses it, only so far as he applies it to the public good for which it was given. For such is the nature of all the gifts of heaven to man, that being designed for general use, their excellence perishes, and is totally lost to the unhappy possessor, whensoever he seeks to appropriate them to himself, and by a sordid self-love, to apply them to the promotion of his own glory, rather than to the