Religion and science; Science -- Juvenile literature
But especially do we undertake all our more definite efforts with a
full expectation of the aid of the forces without us. Man takes to
agriculture with a relish that indicates that the soil and he are akin.
He expects all its energies to cooperate with him. He plants the grain
or seed expecting that all its vegetative forces will cowork with his
plans. Every energy of earth, air, water, and the far-off sun work
into his plans as if they had no other end in all their being. If a
man wants a house, he expects the solidity of the rock, all the
adaptations of wood that has been growing for a century, expects the
beauty of the fir tree, the pine, and the box to come together to
beautify the place of his dwelling.
There are other forces into which man can put his scepter of power and
hand of mastery. They all work for and with him. Does he want his
burdens carried? The river will convey the Indian on a log or the
armaments of the greatest nations. The wind fits itself into the
shoulder of his sail on the sea, and steam does more work on the land
than all the human race together. Does he want swiftness? The
lightning comes and goes between the ends of the earth saying, "Here am
I." Obviously all these kinds of forces are always on hand to work
into man's plans.
Is not our whole question settled? If these fundamental forces, these
oceans of air and energy, forces so great that man cannot measure them,
so delicate and fine that man does not discover them in thousands of
years, are all waiting and palpitating to rush into the service of man
to advance his plans, and hint of plans larger than he ever dreamed,
until he grows great by handling these ineffable factors, how can it be
otherwise than that the energies, thoughts, and loves back of these
forces, and out of which they come, and of which they are the visible
signs and exponents, are working together with man? Then, in all
probability, nay in all certainty, all other forces, whether they be
thrones or dominions, principalities or powers, things present or
things to come, will also lend all their energies to the help of man.
God does not aid in the lowest and leave us to ourselves in the
highest. He does not feed the body and let the soul famish, does not
help us to the meat that perishes and let us starve for the bread of
eternal life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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