Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Nature and Culture
What exists beyond her domain, if any thing, becomes necessarily a matter of faith or imagination; and yet the origin of the mate rial universe presents a problem which neither the vagaries of the ancients nor the specula tions of the moderns have been able to solve in a satisfactory manner.
In modern methods of logic, we reason from cause to effect, from the known to the unknown but in attempting to penetrate the region of the unknown, we are often left without a reliable guide. Analogy may aid, but cannot assure us. The powers of the human mind, if not infinite, may admit of infinite culture. What is sup posed to be unknowable may therefore be come known. However this may be, there is no divine injunction which prescribes a limit to human possibilities.
Whatever we may think or believe, the vol ume of Nature contains nothing but truth; it is a divine record which is as inexhaustible in its wealth of knowledge as it is conclusive in its logic. Men of science, in attempting to read this unerring record, have advanced many plaus ible theories in relation to the processes by which the earth acquired its embodiment, and took its place among the golden orbs of heaven.
There are reasons for believing that matter has always existed in some form or other, and that it is infinite in extent as well as in duration. Nor need we hesitate to infer, from the knowl edge we have of the various forms in which matter exists, that what is true of the earth in its processes of development is equally true of every other planet.
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