The strength of this tendency in mere men--and it is strongest in the greatest--to find a statement that may account for all things is shown in the absurd conclusions that some of them, entirely sane on other subjects, accept for themselves and urge upon other minds. A great chemist concludes that the universe was “once latent in a fiery cloud,” and seems content with a form of pretty words. Another expounder of mysteries accounts for life in our world by telling us that “germs” were first brought from somewhere in space by “falling meteorites,” pays his worship to what he dreams is science, and is content to push his problem further from him. The notion that the word “protoplasm” is supposed to stand for represents another effort to explain all things, albeit by a theory harder to understand than the universe it would embrace and expound. These are only specimens; both ancient and modern times abound in them. Wiser, perhaps, and quite as scientific was the desperation of that student of the mysteries of life and man who concluded that the “missing link” must be in the bottom of the Indian Ocean; for no diver can prove what is not in water so deep as this fathomless sea. What we are now considering is a resistless tendency in thinking minds. It is not peculiar to one class of men; it does not characterize one age. It is simply human nature to ask questions and seek explanations. Consider a few names now mentioned and see for yourself that the greater the mere man the more he tries to explain the universe--to find a formula large enough to contain it, to classify its facts and correlate its forces. Think of these men and the few whose names should go with them--Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Origen, Augustine, Pelagius, Athanasius, Calvin, Edwards, Leibnitz, Bacon, Humboldt, Kant, Cuvier, and, perhaps, some new men. Philosophers, scientists, theologians, they are all alike in this--they are building a system, a philosophy of the universe. Do not mistake my purpose in these illustrations; the disposition which we have been considering is a pure human instinct; it is resistless, and it is the condition of mental activity. The mind that does not ask questions, that does not knock at the closed doors of knowledge, is stagnant and will perish. Progress and growth depend upon inquiry. Wise men will cheer every earnest student, whether he is trying to find what an atom is or what the stars contain. It is a man’s way to seek to explain all things; the effort affords the drill and discipline that make growth and progress possible to the race.