Knowledge, Theory of; Mind and body; Perception; Senses and sensation
Thus, then, are organic bodies, plants, the lower animals, and man,
affected by atmospheric temperature; but man has called in heat,
artificially produced, if we may use the word in a certain sense, to
his aid. Without heat, ore could not be smelted, or instruments of
metal made; glass and earthenware could not be manufactured; houses
could neither be built, nor furnished with articles of utility; the
operations of agriculture could not be successively carried on, nor
ships built, nor steam engines or machinery be constructed, nor could
man clothe himself or cook his food. In short, were it to please the
Almighty to suspend the laws of caloric, man would be rendered at
once helpless, and his senses useless; he must necessarily become a
completely altered being, granting even that his continuance as a
species upon the face of the earth were guaranteed.
With what wisdom, then, are the laws of the Almighty framed! How
happily do they all conjoin to fit this world for the exercise of our
senses and our reason! Yet, how mysterious they are! We know not even
what light and caloric really are; they are incomprehensible, and
yet we experience their influence, and daily test their laws. Who,
then, can wonder that the fall of man, the decrees of God, the advent
of Christ, his Divine and human nature conjoined, his death as an
atonement of inestimable value, his intercession for all who come to
him with faith, and the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, are each and
all mysteries? "Canst thou by searching find out God?" Yet the believer
knows _that_ God to be his Father and his Friend; he walks by faith and
not by sight, "by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that
believe," and are "justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus." When we reflect upon the mysteries of nature,
let us also think upon the mysteries of grace; let the consciousness of
our own ignorance lead us to throw aside presumption, and trust to the
words dictated by Him, to whom all mysteries are open, and whose wisdom
and goodness have no bounds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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