Show i IMMORTALITY ‘66 IMMORTALITY OF SCIENCE 'AND ARl’ OF SCIENCE AND ART In our first number under the heading of “ Our Tito show that society has from its earliest stages’ been making progress towards a great “ culminating civilization” in Avhich all the previous efforts of society will be merged and displayed We may have left the impression in the minds of some thatwb suppose when that point is reached perfection will be so far obtained that thenceforth humanity will float smoothly on a glittering but unruffled sea of perfection — a tide of progress arrived tle” we tried at its high water mark This however is not what tvc wish to convey to the minds of our readers By the words “ culminating- civilization” as used in the article referred to we wish to be understood relatively— -- a culminating civilization only in reference to the past In our estimation there can be no culmination to the eternal series of progressive attainments of which intelligence is capable There can be no culmination to man’s course or to the efforts of undying divinity that exists within him Created is man is perfectly destitute of any inward sense of the possibility of death or limit to life being or powers ‘man’s soul long ere now would have aspired to comprehend the iini verse of truth bad hot priestcraft — al-- : ways terrified at the extent of his nature — held him back’ by warnings of the wrath' of the very God whose awakening he feels and of whose unlimited ambitions bis whole being is the counterpart Let hut that spell be brokon and the fact of the divine and eternal nature of man be fully accepted in its stead and under its inspiring influence the culminating civilization of which we have spoken— come when it may — with nil its gloriously combined results of the efforts of allpre viousages will prove hut the lowest stage of a great new scries in connection with which mankind will ‘travel as much higher still Such arc our views of the future of society With us man is viewed as an unlimited being existing in an imlimited universe surrounded unlimitedly with objects for his scrutiny and comprehension — a death's universe to be explored — a deathless soul within to explore it No sense of limit to his capabili- ties within his soul no evidence that there can ever be a time when there will be nothing more to learn indicated in the universe without As it should be man finds himself fitted in character to the universe 'in which lie exists Were he limited in his capabili- ties or the universe in its resources there would be a of things- As to intclli- lack of fitness in gence in the abstract wc cannot conceive of intelli- ' gencc but as deathless ever progressing intelligence without paiu Supposing intelligence to be created-which we by no menus affirm — for God to awaken into existence such intelligence as we possess while it is in the least degree possible that there can be any decay or limit to its active career would amount to his creating the strong instincts of life to1 face the horrifying prospect of their own dissolution thus constituting himself Creator and Destroyer of life mul pleasure in the same act But this never can he true ' When the meanest promptings or wants of our physi-- ! cal being find themselves without exception- elaborately supplied in the grand provisions of nature the mightiest the most intensified yearnings of our spirits cannot alone be created for disappointment The yearnings for endless life and progress existing within us must be true indications of the future that evidences that exist of await us or the million-folthe invariable presence of such desires in the human f ' ! ! d t fit’ would’ be so many evidences that the God of nature lias lent himself to convey a false anticipation to every heart’ and to bear witness to a lie in every bosom Inasmuch as Nature— as heard speaking in the liqarts of the good and the wise of all ages— cannot lie the future of our race can only be truly read in the light of the boundless yearnings for knowledge that exist within us side by side with the immensity Science and art of wisdom evidently foriis to learn then with us can but have begun tlieir day As boundless and unexplorable as the Universe itself must be the sciences that will in blue 'order be sought out by the untiring energies of unclouded humanity Give man only the same amount of progress he even now can make assume his slowest rate' of growth! and give him but ALL ETERNITY for liis day of opera--tioand you have constituted him comparatively a God at once ! A greater deity in the future anyway than our highest imaginations’ can'eoiiceivc or language can convey Assume’ then "better' and stilly better conditions for bis progress than now exist — as well we may — and the same eternal period for liis development and where have you prospectively landed him 1 And with him where have you predicted the position of In the very heart if the race to which lj£ belongs heart there be to the infinite circle of the Divine SciJWherethe ences of creative and beautifying power Great Universe is found yielding up its' secrets one by one to liis determined will where ceaseless ages in their periods come but to pour new tides of strength iiito ’liist being and open wide and still wider doors through which liis enlarged vision may gaze astonished upon the majestic infinitudes of undiscovered science still without But let us now come back to our own time — to the y wliat shall we say ot them V simplicities of This that distant and immense as are the leadings of the road that will yet be traveled by mankind we are y or oil paths that lead to ' it on that road expansive and divine as necessarily will sciences that will in due time reveal themselves the simplest truths mankind have already made their’ own are as immortal and divine as any that ever will ' be reached All truths form but so many strata of a interlockboundless series supporting overlaying and ing each other and forming one grand and indissoluble therefore to any one truth To whole is to be in a sense connected to the whole for the We have consewhole is then within ‘our reach quently in any truth we have ever learned one end of a thread running through all the facts of universal life and by following wtfhich we may explore unlimitedly the chambers of the palace of immensity Wliat we' gain therefore in couceptivc inventive or however limited in extent it creative strength be much is so gained of the immensity of wismay harmodom and capacity which creates worlds-andnizes universes Even in all the small accomplishments’ that lie between the creation of a table to the' invention of a telegraph wir£ we grasp faculties of Deity Small as the draught may be we drink of the same “stream which makes glad the city of our God” Ilowever close to the shore as yet we sail wc are on ail unlimited sea on whose boundless waters the revealing light of truth never sets — as much on the sea as archangels or celestial beings of any order who eternal ages hence left the shore and turned their exploring eyes towards the exhaustless but not incomprehensible mysteries ahead So much then allow us to assert for tlie oneness of the truth? we know Wn the truths that ever have soul ! ! nS I ! : ! Iin-mort- al be-th- ' y |