Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, April 1899: Volume LIV, No. 6, April 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, April 1899: Volume LIV, No. 6, April 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
It is needless to say that there are thousands of minds in the world
possessed of good native power, but laboring under serious disability
for the want of that culture which science alone can bestow. Some of
these are sick with morbid longings for unattainable knowledge, and
openly or secretly rebellious at the limitations of a Nature whose
powers they have never even begun to explore. To such persons anything
like an adequate insight into the harmony amid diversity of Nature's
laws would come with all the force of a revelation, and would, we may
well believe, clear their minds of the feverish fancies which have
made them so restless and dissatisfied; but, alas! it is rarely that
such enlightenment comes to those who have not in youth imbibed a
portion of the scientific spirit. In this class are to be found the
victims of spiritualism, of the Keeley motor, and even of that
grotesque satire, the success of which we remember almost with fear
and trembling, the "sympsychograph." Still, to all such we would say:
"Come forth into the light of things;
Let Nature be your teacher."
The "Nature" which we require to teach us for the peace and
tranquillity of our souls is the Nature of everyday phenomena, the
Nature that forms the clouds and rounds the raindrops, that springs in
the grass and pulses in the tides, that glances in the sunbeam and
breathes in the flower, that works witchery in the crystal and breaks
into glory in the sunset. The mind that knows what can be known of
these things has feasted full of wonder and beauty, and makes no
greedy demand for higher grace or mightier miracle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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