Problems of the future, and essays / by S. Laing.

  • Laing, Samuel, 1780-1868.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Problems of the future, and essays / by S. Laing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    loftiest summits, he feels assured that it will stand on those which remain unsealed. So it is with modern science. For centuries it had to grope its purblind way through dense jungles of superstitious ignorance, where misty shapes of theologi- cal and metaphysical speculation obscured the real facts of the universe, or were mistaken for them. At length, and comparatively quite recently, the human intellect emerged into the light of day, and gaining the first heights, began to acquire accurate ideas of the true laws and constitution of the universe. The progress, once begun, went on at an accelerated rate, until in the last half century it has carried with it in an impetuous torrent old creeds and cherished convictions, like so much drift-wood floating on the surface of Lake Erie, when caught by the current which hurries it down the Palls of Niagara. So irresistible and so wide-spread has been the advance of science, that at first sight we are perhaps disposed to overrate it, and to fancy, like Alexander, that no more worlds repain to conquer, or that, at most, a few unimportant territories are still unannexed. But the true man of science knows difi'erently. He sees ridge still rising behind ridge, and at every step wider horizons opening, with distant peaks that still bafile the boldest climber. But he no longer gazes at them with aimless wonder, or if he fails to understand them, invents a high-sound- ing phrase to disguise his ignorance. His faith is firm in the laws of Nature, and he feels assured that what- ever lies within their domain is discoverable, and will,