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Spiritual and Mathematical Knowledge.

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Wisdom without purpose, Love without object. Again, looking at nature, we behold government by law, the lower existences serve with blind obedience; ascending, we find in plants an obscure vibration of life, amongst animals is consciousness, within man is a higher principle of intelligence. This intelligence leads to the conviction that wisdom is at the heart of things, and that the whole world is a manifestation or revelation of that wisdom. Suppose that we forsake the guidance of intelligence, or that intelligence decreases, then man sinks. into the brute, and the further descent is from brute to plant, and from plant to inorganic matter; but holding fast by intelligence, then, in the measure an organism is enriched, moral and intellectual faculties, delicate sensations, memory, imagination, reason, will, are possessed, the supreme conviction is attained that wisdom is a great reality. Our footsteps. are firm in this argument. We know not why God is, nor how we imperfect creatures are, by existence united to the Perfect; but there is no contradiction to truth in the fact that our knowledge exercises itself concerning this wisdom, until we have conception of a Being immanent in all phenomena.

2. The things thus known of God form part of our knowledge in much the same way that mathematical truth is wrought in our mind. Our consciousness says, "we think, that which thinks exists." To this axiom or primitive truth, ego, is added the consciousness of other existence, non ego. Then we advance in thought-we imperfect beings cannot be self-existent, but exist by will of the Perfect. If so, space, duration, the universe in its vast display of existence, are manifestations of the great Existence. By the duration of hour, day, year, we obtain a notion of time, if not of eternity; by the extent of an edifice, and by motions in space, acquire an idea of space, if not of infinitude; and by triangles, globes, squares, attain to knowledge of mathematics; and still pursuing, we advance, rising from concrete to pure abstract truths, until we rest in Him who is the grand Entity-" I am that I am," in whom, by whom, and for whom all things exist.

Honour is due to those devout men whose science fits

them to be priests of the physical universe, to unfold its mysteries and explain its powers. Tracing natural things to natural source and cause, they show that the provisions of nature are not from the sun-god, but from the Lord God. Their understanding of the works of God enables them to rejoice in the light, behold the enlargement, and reverence the dignity of the Divine Word-the letter stationary, the meaning progressive; the ancient signs, as time advances, becoming sacred symbols which shine with greatest beauty when the light of far off days falls on them. Entering within the curtains of the literal word, these men proceed in spirit to the most holy place of the sanctuary. Drawing near with the incense of devotion, kindled by the light of science in the well-prepared vessel of an experienced intellect, they worship before the mercy-seat of Jehovah. Then coming forth to exercise their office, they consecrate every school of thought, every platform, every lecture room, as temples in which are expounded the will, the design, the work of Him in whom they live and move, and have their being.

"Bless'd are they

Who in this fleshly world, the elect of Heaven,
Their strong eye darting thro' the deeds of men,
Adore with steadfast unpresuming gaze
Him, Nature's Essence, Mind, and Energy!
And gazing, trembling, patiently ascend,
Treading beneath their feet all visible things
As steps that upward to their Father's throne
Lead gradual."

S. T. COLERIDGE, Religious Musings.

STUDY III.

THE THRESHOLD OF CREATION.

"Thou from primeval nothingness didst call

First chaos, then existence ;-Lord, on Thee
Eternity had its foundations-all

Spring forth from Thee; of light, joy, harmony,
Sole origin;-all life, all beauty Thine."

SIR. J. BOWRING.

SOME of us limit, and lightly toy with the Creator's attributes profess to scale the awful heights of infinity, and to build a godless world by means of a sufficiently enlightened human intellect. Now, while we would not fix any limit to the knowledge which we may acquire as to the constitution of matter, nevertheless, far as we may manage to go, something will lie beyond. No doubt a particle of matter is less. complex than the universe, but that particle, all in all, is infinite, and who shall compare the two? Suppose we have compared them, it is simply preposterous to imagine that we shall ever scientifically trace the continuity of molecular processes into the phenomena of consciousness; therefore, it can never be proved that "matter is the origin of all that exists." It is certain that, even within our natural bodies, we possess a consciousness which cannot be materially explained; and that this consciousness makes itself at home in other and wider worlds where only pure spirits dwell.

Other men, thinking thereby to honour the Almighty, speak of the universe as created by the breath, fashioned by the touch, and launched from the hand of God: likening Him to a mechanic, and His work to a machine. Whereas, the phenomena of the world can only be known as they exist in relation to our intelligence; and the vast synthesis of energies within us, which from infancy till the end of life are in manifold contact with vaster energies without us, can

never be known in objective existence, or as to the nature of their cause, but simply as affecting our consciousness; therefore, to say that Divine energy produced the world by methods analogous to human methods, and that the laws of nature and manifold harmonies of the universe arose from quasi-human volitions, is to err with the materialists, who limit the Divine operation to their own finite conception.

It is quite true, Scripture so describes that portion of the Divine dominions with which we are connected, that for long time most men thought that the world was brought suddenly into existence, and has since remained substantially unaltered. Indeed, past, present, and future are continually spoken of as the now-the present. Things yet to come are often regarded as already existing. The slow operation of many ages is not unfrequently represented as of immediate and quick performance. In prophecy, in poetry, in mystical passages, in parables, the same style prevails. It is, we conceive, the most suitable and simple for the high subject of creation; but as we are informed that the Father worketh till now, and of creative processes proceeding in many other planets, suns, and systems, we must not remain in our former childlike conceptions, but acknowledge that the works of the Almighty are progressive and infinite, that He and they surpass all understanding.

In endeavouring to obtain some conception of that which surpasseth conception, think of time hasting away, preceded and followed evermore and evermore by other time; which, however retraced as to the past, attains no beginning, or extended into the future, finds no end. Represent space enveloping smaller space, itself enclosed by greater and ever greater; yet, wherever the boundary is set, infinity lies beyond, containing all, itself by none contained. Contemplate existences manifold in number, form, degree, vast movements of worlds innumerable. Adding billions of cycles to the past, we are still far off from that beginning when Christ was Son, and worlds had birth (Jno. i. 1-3); and when, at command of Christ our Lord, the mystery of sin shall have been accomplished, its solemn lessons learned, and time no more, then we shall not be at the end, for

Elements of Space.

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new worlds of fairer form and perfect beauty will own

His sway.

Chastened by these conceptions, enter the threshold of Creation.

Our first step is an enquiry whether any barrier in the past or future stayed, or will stay, the operation and progress of God.

If the world had a beginning, and nevertheless is infinite, then we must suppose that from any instant, say the present, an infinite series of creations has gone forth. This is absurd; for it is the property of an infinite series that neither first nor last can be found. An infinite world-that is a world consisting of infinite parts, requires an eternity for their enumeration. Suppose that the world is not infinite in extent, nor eternal in duration, then we have a pre-existent eternal void in which could be no creation; for why at any one moment more than another? And beyond this world would be an infinite space, to which the world must have some necessary relation, which is also absurd; for what relation can the world have with nothing?

It may be said, and justly, this language is somewhat paradoxical and inexact, for eternity is not time; neither coming nor departing, it is and for ever. Time is measured by the world's changes, and all duration is comprised in two series, the past and the future. Add these together, and they form time, not eternity. As to space, we conceive of it as involving (we know not why) the essential element of three dimensions; but mathematicians are yet undecided as to whether it has precisely the same properties throughout the universe. An inhabitant in space of two dimensions only would be incapable of appreciating the third dimension, but would certainly feel a difference in passing from his space to other portions which were more curved. "So it is possible that in the rapid march of the solar system through space, we may be gradually passing to regions in which space has not precisely the same properties as we find here—where it may have something in three dimensions analogous to curvature in two dimensions-something, in fact, which will necessarily imply a fourth-dimension change of form in portions of matter,

D

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