Page:The Divine Order of the Universe as Interpreted by Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/19

Rh of the first importance to us, yet without any significance to the inhabitants of other planets?

If Science is silent upon these questions, what has the philosopher or the theologian to say? "To whom," says Professor Tyndall, "has this arm of the Lord been revealed? Let us lower our heads and acknowledge our ignorance, priest and philosopher, one and all."

Accordingly, as Science has been hitherto silent upon this subject, a modem astronomer praises also the silence of philosophy. "If we were disposed," says Bacon, "to survey the realm of sacred or inspired theology, we must quit the small vessel of human reason, and put ourselves on board the ship of the Church, which alone possesses the Divine needle for justly shaping the course. Nor will the stars of philosophy, that have hitherto principally lent their light, be of further service to us; and therefore it were not improper to be silent upon the subject."

What then has the Church to say upon the questions raised by Astronomy? We have seen it stated, that the priest as well as the philosopher is bound to acknowledge his ignorance: for what can the Church upon this planet tell us of the Church in other planets? What of the Church in the planets of other solar systems? If our own planet, in relation to the rest of the Universe, scarcely amounts to a grain of sand upon the seashore, does the Catholicity of the Church upon our earth extend no farther than to this infinitesimal limit?

If then science, philosophy, and religion, in their relation to Astronomy, the grandest of all sciences, have hitherto been silent upon this subject, is the silence to be