——Nature is made better by no mean, But nature makes that mean: over that art Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes.
Not as adventitious therefore will the wise man regard the faith which is in him. The highest truth he sees he will fearlessly utter; knowing that, let what may come of it, he is thus playing his right part in the world—knowing that if he can effect the change he aims at—well: if not—well also; though not _so_ well.
These extracts are from an article entitled “Nature and God,” published in the _National Review_ for October, 1860.
§ 35. We have seen that intellectual advance has been dual—has been towards the establishment of both a positively unknown and a positively known. In making ever more certain the inaccessibility of one kind of truth, experience has made ever more certain the accessibility of another kind. The differentiation of the knowable from the unknowable, is shown as much in the reduction of the one to perfect clearness, as in the reduction of the other to impenetrable mystery. Progressing enlightenment discloses a definite limit to human intelligence; and while all which lies on the other side of the limit, is, with increasing distinctness, seen to transcend our finite faculties, it grows more and more obvious that all which lies on this side of the limit may become an indisputable possession.
To speak specifically—it has been shown that though we can never learn the _nature_ of that which is manifested to us, we are daily learning more completely the _order_ of its manifestations. We are conscious of effects produced in us by something separate from ourselves. The effects of which we are conscious—the changes of consciousness which make up our mental life, we ascribe to the forces of an external world. The intrinsic character of these forces—of this external world—of that which underlies all appearances, we find inscrutable; as is also the internal something whose changes constitute consciousness, but at the same time we find that among the changes of consciousness thus produced, there exist various constant relations; and we have no choice but to ascribe constancy to the relations which subsist among the inscrutable causes of these changes. Observation early discloses certain invariable connexions of coexistence and sequence among phenomena. Accumulating experiences tend continually to augment the number of invariable connexions recognized. When, as in the later stages of civilization, there arises not only a diligent gathering together of experiences but a critical comparison of them, more remote and complex connexions are added to the list. And gradually there grows up the habit of regarding these uniformities of relation as characterizing all manifestations of the Unknowable. Under the endless variety and seeming irregularity, there is ever more clearly discerned that “constant course of procedure” which we call Law.