To abstract good no man has found the key, Though in the various forms of concrete good We see the similars, and from these frame A good that serves the purposes of life. We pass it as we do the concept, “Man,” But never ope to count the attributes. Our purest right is but approximate To this vague abstract idea, how obtained, We know not. Plato says ’tis memory Of previous life. Perhaps! ’Tis very dim In this; and yet it rocks the cradle world As strongly as the baby man can bear And so of truth, or aught abstract, we know Of such existence somewhere, that is all. “But we,” cries one, “do hold some abstract truth, In perfect form. The truth of science’ laws, The truths of numbers, each are perfect truths.” The truths of science are hypotheses, And only true as far as they explain. But perfect truth must save all facts, That ever rose or possibly can rise. “The priest of Nature” thought he held the truth When throughout space he tracked the motes of light, And ground the sunbeams into dazzling dust. Our quivering waves through subtle ether flash, And drown Sir Isaac’s atoms in a flood Of glorious truth; till some new fact shall rise To give our truth the lie, and cause a change Of theory. Our numbers no truth have, Or but a shadow, cast on Earth by truth Existent in some unknown world. We make Our little numbers fit the shadow’s line As best they can, and boast eternal truth! Yet take a simple form of numbers, “two,” We cannot have a perfect thought of this, Because the mind directly asks, two what? ’Tis not enough chameleon to feed On empty air. Two units, we reply Then what is meant by unity? An “One,”-- The mind can only cognize o-n-e, Which makes three units and not one. The mind Must have a concrete object to adjust The abstract on, before it comprehends. But two concretes are never two, because They never can be proved exactly ’like. To illustrate: suppose two ivory balls, Of finest mold, and equal weight, precise As hair-hung scales, arranged most delicate, Can prove; yet they can not be shown To differ, not the trillionth of a grain; Or if they could, they may in density Be unlike; then to equal weight, one must Be larger by the trillionth of an inch. Even if alike in density and weight, No one will dare assert that they possess A perfect similarity in all. The abstract two is twice as much as one, But our two balls unlike, perforce must be Greater or less than two of either one; But two of one, the same can never be On poor, imperfect Earth. Thus all our twos Fall, in some measure, short of concept two. And if we paint the concept to the eye, The figure 2 of finest stereotype, Beneath the microscope imperfect shows.