Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/689

Rh Infinity. He is one both with that star-beam which left its home before America was discovered, and with the blowing flower which a breath of summer has called forth. It is no mean vantage -ground, nor one which the spectacled haunter of libraries can afford to despise, to feel one's self a sharer in the pulsating life of the universe, to be a citizen of space, at home everywhere. Such is the position of the earnest scientist. He is the true poet and the true prophet. He lives in communion with a God who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; in whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. This absolute confidence in the inexorableness of divine law begets a serenity of life which is with difficulty disturbed, and a deep morality of thought and deed which is seldom the child of more local revelation. The idea of chance or caprice becomes impossible.

It is with a curious pity that the student of Nature watches the crowd of worshipers at the Tower of Babel. He is willing to admit, with Max Müller, that there is no thought without language, and no language without thought; but so pre-eminent seems the thought to him that he feels well assured that a suitable vehicle will not be wanting for the carriage of so royal a guest. To such a one, the conduct of life becomes the chief end of education. The crucial test which he applies to each branch of study offered to either young or old is not whether it is useful, but whether it is the most useful. He will not be satisfied with any choice that is merely second best, for time meanwhile is flying, and, if we do this, we can not do that. The question is not whether any particular course will bring wealth of information, but rather whether it will induce fullness of living. It is surprising with what a small stock of facts, if they be of the right sort, a man can get along, and still be happy and progressive. I remember, as a boy, the envious regard which I bestowed upon a little friend of mine, whose dexterity in the difficult art of parsing quite surpassed my own feebler efforts. But one day I made the discovery that not only was he no better for entertaining that sort of knowledge, but, what was more surprising, his English was no more polished than my own. Since that time I have had frequent occasion to recall the discovery, and I confess that it has reconciled me to an ignorance upon many similar subjects. The substitution of this artificial, lifeless knowledge for that which is natural and organic, must be regarded as scarcely less than criminal by those who hold the true aim of culture to be the evolution of wisdom and of goodness. A man can not be expected to think soundly about a world of which he is quite ignorant, or to bring himself into relation with a universe whose confines are nearer than his finger-ends.