If such are the uncertainties of science to the actual investigators, what shall we say to him who has learned his science at school? When we meet with such an infidel, who denounces religion while he extols the certainties of science, would it not be well to ask a few questions such as the following? Have you personally measured the diameter of the earth, observed the transit of Venus, or calculated the distance of the moon? Or, further, would you feel yourself competent to perform such labor; or is it possible that, after all your boasting, you have taken your science at second-hand, and on the testimony of another? Again, perhaps you are a student of the stone book (as scientists sometimes call the strata of the earth's crust), with its enduring records graven in the rock forever; and perhaps you profess to believe that under these ponderous strata the Bible has found an everlasting tomb! But how many of the volumes of this stone book have you perused personally! Have you ever visited the many localities in our own country, to say nothing of the instructive lessons to be learned from the strata of England, Scotland, Wales, the Himalayas, the Andes and the Lauretian rocks of Canada, where the different formations are to be seen? Have you personally excavated from their beds, the various fossils that form, as it were, the very alphabet of the science; or, is it possible that all you know of geology is from the specimens of collectors, and the statements {50} of lecturers aided by maps of ideal stratification in rose-pink, brimstone-yellow and indigo-blue? But perhaps you are a chemist, and proud, as most chemists are, of the accuracy attainable in that most demonstrative science. But how much of it is really science to you? Of the nine hundred and forty-two substances mentioned in Turner's Chemistry, how many have you analyzed? Could you truthfully say one-half, one-fourth, or even one-tenth? Much less, would you face the laughter of a college class, to-morrow, upon the experiment of taking nine out of the nine hundred, reducing them to their primitive elements, and giving an accurate analysis of their component parts? In fact, do you know anything worth mentioning of the facts of science upon your own knowledge, except those of the trade by which you make your living? Or, after all your boasting about scientific certainty, is it true that you have been obliged to receive your science upon faith, at second-hand, and on the word of another, and to save your life you could not tell who that other is, or even name the discoverers of half the scientific truths you believe? Therefore, whatever precision may be attained by scientific men--and we have seen that it is not much--it is very certain you have none of it. The very best you can have to wrap yourself in is a second-hand assurance, grievously torn by rival schools, and needing to be patched every month by later discoveries.