MORTAL thought is oftentimes startled nowadays to find how ignorant it is, and how indifferent to its ignorance regarding the essentials of being. There are many marvels constantly passing like a panorama before human sight, as inexplicable from its point of view as any of the so-called miracles of ancient times, but these everyday wonders are of such frequent occurrence and of such familiar aspect that people seldom question, much less attempt to explain their meaning. Who can tell just how or why the seed, apparently as inert, as lifeless as a grain of sand, when dropped into the earth, so soon begins to feel, to move, to act? How is it that there, alone in the dark, it bursts its shell and sends its shoot upward through the soil and on beyond the surface in direct opposition to the law of gravitation? Who can explain why its leaves are green? Why its blossoms should be blue, while that of its neighbor, growing out of the same soil and surrounded by the same atmosphere, is, perchance, red?
This is recognized as an age of unwonted activity. "Investigation" and "progress" are watchwords heard all along the line of the onward way; and while many wonderful discoveries and many useful inventions have; been brought forward, yet our time is distinguished even more by a strong sense of the infinite possibilities to be revealed. In the eternal unfolding of Truth the first divine injunction is, "Let there lie light:"' and the desire and effort of the advancing thought is for more and more light. If, then, light is so indispensable to the knowledge of Truth, how essential that we know something positive and reliable concerning its nature and operation. It is generally conceded that all knowledge or science worthy of the name is founded upon the truth. Human opinion has no weight whatever, either in establishing or in refuting scientific knowledge. Underlying and pervading every truly scientific statement is a definite Principle, fixed, immovable, and eternal, and this Principle must be allowed to testify of its own.
Since all truth is divine, not human, Principle and its workings become known through revelation rather than through human reasoning. Just as soon as divine revelation is recognized and accepted for what it really is, it is found to agree exactly with all proper reasoning and to bring the knowledge that endures. The fallacy of seeking knowledge from aught but a spiritual basis could not be better illustrated than by noting the past attempts to define and explain light. Some two hundred years ago, the great philosopher, Newton, advanced a theory to the effect that light consists of myriads of material particles thrown off from luminous bodies, and traveling through space with inconceivable speed. This explanation was for a time generally accepted as fact; but was finally wholly abandoned and superseded by another quite different hypothesis, which declared light to be the setting in motion of wavelike vibrations in the invisible ether which, according to material science, pervades space. This latter conjecture still obtains to a great extent, though of late it, too, has had to divide the honors with yet another theory, which declares light to be wholly the result of electrical vibrations.
