find it to be this: The universe is one grand, connected, and systematic whole, having all its parts so organically correlated that there is no possibility of accident or disharmony. The symphony of a harmonious universe excels, as it includes, the Pythagorean music of the spheres. To this affirmation all the faltering footsteps of science and all her mighty leaps have tended, and in this all her inductions now concentre, and make it the fruitful source of reliable deductions. The general theory of development, with all its specific applications, is more a deduction from this truth than the result of purely inductive science. The theory outruns the facts, and yet it is confidently affirmed. It is applied to new phenomena with perfect assurance that it will be found to be the law of their connection. Science, too, is rightly dogmatic in affirming the unity of the universe, which theologians have always affirmed, however much their explanation of it has erred. Science, too, which gives the OT of phenomena, rightly rejects any theory or any induction which is at variance with this her ultimate result. But she must take care to see the whole universe, and not to look only at its physical side. If she denies the possibility of miracles, it is because her view of the universe is only partial. If she denies the possibility of physical answer to prayer, it is from the same reason. And theologians have no other ground for affirming the truth of both these than this same belief in the organic unity of the universe, which has become recognized as a truth of reason, and thus a judge of opinions. Science busies herself in showing how all the phenomena of the physical world fall into harmony with this truth of the reason. Baden Powell says: "All science is but the partial reflection in the reason of man of the great, all-pervading reason of the universe. And thus the unity of science is the reflection of the unity of nature, and of that unity of the supreme reason and intelligence which pervades and rules over all nature, and whence our reason and all science are derived. If the laws of reason did not exist in nature, we should vainly attempt to force them upon her, and if the laws of nature did not exist in our reason, we should not be able to comprehend them." All science rests on this faith in the correspondence of nature with our laws of thoughtupon the reality of our thought. Science, in its highest or dynamic form, does not stop with the observation and classification of facts. But from a few facts it rises to dogmas about all facts; pressing boldly into the otherwise unknown, and embracing it within its circle of knowledge. No vision of the senses, no classification of the understanding, can peer into the future, and give the prevision which science gives when she speaks as confidently of the future as of the present. Back of all this, lies the intuition of truth, the belief in the organic connection of all things, which is at once the goal and the inspiration of science. Our thought can "put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes," can in a moment travel to the confines of eternity, and bring it into present vision. But all this is done in faith and by faith in the truthfulness of our intuition of the truth. We cannot insist on this too strongly. We live, in so far as we are just, that is, right-minded towards all within and without us, entirely by faith, as it is written: "The just shall live by faith." We come into the world in good faith, and we take the world on good faith. We grow as we continue in this good faith in ourselves and in the world. We trust our growing instincts, and through them we rise to the grandest generalizations of science. We believe in the truth of things, that is, that they are all harmoniously related and correlated. We believe in the truth of ourselves of all our faculties and powers. We do not believe that our whole nature, or that any part of it, is a lie; for this is the disbelief that embraces all the infidelity the soul of man is capable of. It is in this faith that science works to such good purpose. Real and thorough-going scepticism could never take a step towards any positive result. She claims, as the result of her work, the proposition that the world is a connected and systematic whole, which is but another form of the first proposition of the reason regarding truth. And the background of all the faith exercised is this same intuition of the reason. It is more the cause and parent of the belief in the organic unity of the universe than the result and child of it. It does not, it is true, exist fullformed in the mind, from earliest childhood, but it is always ahead of the results of the senses and the understanding, correcting and connecting them, until it reaches its perfect form. It begins in the good faith of the child, in the reality or truthfulness of things. It underlies all the generalizations made by the mind. It is the basis of induction. It is true that the consciousness of it is developed out of the processes of the mind which rest on it, but it is always ahead of and underneath these processes. "I do not have faith in the stability and unity of the universe, because I believe the proposition that the universe is a perfect and systematic whole. On the contrary, I deduce this proposition from the faith with which I expect, in every case, this stability. Still further, I do not believe from induction in this stability; for my faith in induction is itself based upon this other faith."1 The faith which leads us to trust the reports of the senses, is this same faith in the truth. The faith which leads us to trust the reports of the understanding, which are the corrected and connected reports of the senses, is this same faith. And it is this same intuition of truth which conducts the scientist to his belief in the organic unity of the universe. He is simply reducing the materials which this faith, in its successive forms, gives him, to conformity with itself. It is the showing the consubstantiality of the outer and inner, by making all phenomena harmonize with the inner- the proposition of truth. It would be interesting here to show how this proposition, too, necessitates the "final cause" of things, as the end to which all are working, as the only real cause. The organic connection of things which our intuition of reason gives, 1 "Science of Thought," p. 122. necessitates a final cause of the organism and all its parts. It could, too, be shown that "final causes," "the barren vestals," as Bacon called them, have never been barren even, in physical science, but have always been the parents of the greatest discoveries. But it must suffice to mention their connection with this intuition of absolute truth. The two other propositions of the reason concerning goodness and beauty form the basis of theology and aesthetics. The three propositions concerning truth, goodness, and beauty are the rulers, and the circumscribing boundaries of the universe, and science, in its broadest and truest sense, is only the formulating and systematizing of external realities into conformity with these a priori and necessary truths, which are not three truths but one truth. Science is thus of far wider sweep than is ordinarily assigned to it. It includes all that there is to be known, that is knowable -- the world, the soul, and God. To limit science to any one of these is arbitrary and untrue. Physical science, as we have seen, is the making the external world harmonize with the first proposition of the reason. In another Article, we purpose to show that the science of religion, or theology, is the making all religious truth harmonize with the second proposition. In the first proposition we have the true basis and method of physical science; and whether her students recognize it or not, they live and work by it. stultify themselves and overthrow their grand they declare that they trust to the senses alone accept nothing but the solid earth of tactual experience beneath them. They build better than they know, and on better foundations than they claim. We may well apply the noble words of Luther to them: "When at a window," said he "I have gazed at the stars, and the whole beautiful vault of heaven, and saw no pillars on which the builder had set such a vault; yet the heavens fell not in, and that vault still stands firm. Now there are simple folk who look about for such pillars, and would fain feel and grasp them. But since they cannot do this they quake and tremble, as if the They simply results, when that they heavens would certainly fall in, and for no other reason, than because they cannot see and grasp these pillars; if they could but grasp them, then the heavens, they think, would stand firm enough.' - The universe of science still stands firm enough, though there are no visible, material pillars, which the scientist can put under it. But it is self-poised, floating, standing in the mighty faith out of which it has been formed the truth. The scientist, too, stands on firm ground, but it is something far firmer, and far grander, than this little speck of the visible, material universe this little mass of thinly-crusted fire, whirling through infinite space and time. It is the faith of the soul, the substance of all things, that supports him. ARTICLE IV. BOOK RARITIES AT WASHINGTON. BY FREDERIC VINTON, ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON. THE life of a librarian is full of drudgery, yet sweetened by continual delight. It is in the very nature of his vocation, to be walking up and down the paths of literary history, meeting ever and anon with agreeable company, and now and then being awed by majestic shades. What a life of laborious enjoyment was that of Audiffreddi, who passed twenty-seven years in the Casanata library at Rome, settling, with abundant learning, every question relative to the incunabula beneath his hand, yet carrying his catalogue no farther than the letter K. What entertaining discoveries attended every step, while he composed such works as his Catalogus historico-criticus Romanarum editionum saeculi xv, and his Specimen editionum Italicarum saeculi xv. Nor let it be thought that he was a harmless drone, employed only in frivolous trifles, worthy a Dominican monk; for Audiffreddi was |