THE NATURAL GENESIS: OR SECOND PART OF A BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS, CONTAINING AN ATTEMPT TO RECOVER AND RECONSTITUTE THE LOST ORIGINES "In the customs and institutions of schools, academies, colleges, and similar bodies destined for the abode of learned men and the cultivation of learning, everything is found adverse to the progress of science. For the lectures and exercises there are so ordered, that to think or speculate on anything out of the common way can hardly occur to any man. And if one or two have the boldness to use any liberty of judgment, they must undertake the task all by themselves: they can have no advantage from the company of others. And if they can endure this also, they will find their industry and largeness of mind no slight hindrance to their fortune. For the studies of men in these places are confined and as it were imprisoned in the writings of certain authors, from whom if any man dissent he is straightway arraigned as a turbuleni person and an innovator."-BACON. They needs must find it hard to take Truth for authority who have so long mistaken Authority for truth. The Shadows of the past, substantialized, Environ us; we are built abou! from birth With life-long shutting-out of light from heaven, "The few who had the courage to call the child by its right name, the few that knew something of it, who foolishly opened their hearts and revealed their vision to the many, were always burnt or crucified."—GOETHE. 'Tis a truth, howe'er unheeded, Work least wanted is most needed. There is, however, an ineradicable tendency in human nature, howsoever few may cultivate it at one time in the same direction, never to rest short of the attainable; and however minimized its value may appear in the process of attainment, we cannot rest until we know the truth. Certain insects have developed the instinct to lay up food for their offspring which they never live to see. In Africa the natives still dig round about the modern gum-trees to find the buried treasure that oozed from other trees which stood on the same spot in the forests of the far-off past. “ὦ ἀμαθεῖς ἄνθρωποι, διδάξετε ἡμᾶς, τί ἐστιν ὁ θεὸς ἐν τοῖς ἀποκεκλεισ μένος ?” "Bind it about thy neck, write it upon the tablet of thy heart, 'Everything of Christianity is of Egyptian origin.'”—Rev. ROBERT TAYLOR, Oakham Gaol, 1829. "It is easy to show that this fabular relation borders on the verity of physical science."– PLUTARCH. "As for wisdom, what she is and how she came up, I will tell you, and will not hide mysteries from you; but will seek her out from the beginning of her nativity, and bring the knowledge of her into light, and will not pass over the truth."-Wisdom of Solomon, chap. vi. v. 22. "Why does not some one teach me the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead, and which I do not half know to this day?"—Carlyle. "The time is near when these mysteries shall be revealed."—SOHAR. "Now Joseph, the son of Rabbi Joshua, being sick, passed into the state of trance. His father inquired of him, ' What seest thou?' He replied,' The world turned upside down. The lofty are laid low, and the lowly are lifted up on high.' When his father heard this, he said unto him, ' Verily, thou hast seen the age of Selection.”—Pesachim, f. 50, I. |