The very cause of this crescive power of mind is, that the sum of the units aggregated by mind is greater than the arithmetical sum of the units; and the cause of this is, that facts, the elements of noögenisms, are not, like chemical elements, lost in the fact compounded from them, but retain likewise a separate, independent existence, capable of being again compounded into other noögenisms, and still ever without losing their original forms. It will now be understood what is meant by two and two making five, &c.; and until a man is incontrovertibly convinced of the possibility of this he will in vain multiply facts. Facts must be added together, not for their arithmetical product, which is Knowledge, but for their metaphysical product, which is Wisdom. You will frequently hear asked by utilitarians, what is the use (_cui bono?_) of such and such Knowledge? Remember that the use of all Knowledge is to feed the mind and to generate Wisdom, and you will always have this ready and sufficient reply, “It is food for thought.” And here it may not be out of place to endeavour to point out by an example the difference between knowledge and wisdom, and at the same time elucidate more clearly how the former is to be made subservient to and the genetrix of the latter. We observe that a certain quartz-stone is round. We have learnt two facts, the nature and form of the stone. Now what is the value of those facts _per se_? The recipience of them has increased our _knowledge_, but is the mind strengthened or rendered one jot _wiser_? We trow not. But as a key or foundation to an aqueous _theory_ of geology they are almost infinitely important. The Cogitative Mind perceives that the round stone must have once been an angular fragment broken off from some rock of quartz, and asks, “How came it broken off? and how came it round?” The answers are a whole system of geology; nay, perhaps an entire system of the universe a noögenism of the sublimest kind.[25] Have not these facts generated? Is it not clear that, if the physical units had remained metaphysical units they would have been valueless? but being submitted to the powerful energy of intense thought they become the parents of a noögenism, into which “the angels desired to look,” and at the first dawn of which, from the primæval chaos, “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Neither is this instance fanciful; for, while we write, it reminds us that this identical simple fact,—a round pebble on a common,—appeared to Paley to be one from which the mind could evolve nothing, and therefore he contrasted it with a watch, whose mechanism led the mind to theorize on its causes and origin; whereas, a recent commentator thereon justly observes, that the stone was as fertile a source of cogitation and as able a guide “from Nature up to Nature’s God,” as the watch was from itself to _its_ maker.