Facts present are intended to instruct us, and if we duly observe them, they will be ours forever, and we shall trace their connection with futurity.
Rational inferences from facts are not, however, mere airy surmises, but solid Truth, and every expectation fairly founded on experience is of the nature of true prophecy, being consistent with the universal reason by which all events are ordered. Hence the propriety of investigation, and hence the foreseeing sagacity, which really scientific and truthful inquiry always confers. Hence, also, the strength of true religious conviction, and the assurance of the evidence of things not seen, the Substance and reality of things hoped for.
Any single truth, followed up in all its relations, connects us with great Truth. Like the light, however various its manifestations, it is one in its nature, and it emanates from one source, to which it necessarily conducts the eye of all who will look off from the object which it illumines to the fountain of Light itself. Since truths are thus connected in one system, facts can never lead reason astray.
