For thou art but of dust: be humble and be wise.”
Freethinking Lord Shaftesbury begins a section of his “Characteristics” with the remark, that when we reflect on any ordinary frame or constitution, either of art or nature, and consider how hard it is to give the least account of a particular part without a competent knowledge of the whole, we need not wonder to find ourselves at a loss in many things relating to the constitution and frame of the universe. Elsewhere he suggestively observes, that in an infinity of things mutually relative, a mind which sees not infinitely, can see nothing fully; “and since each particular has relation to all in general, it can know no perfect or true relation of anything in a world not perfectly and fully known.” And supposing the case of an ignorant landsman presuming to question the details of a ship’s rigging, his lordship breaks out into the apostrophe, “O my friend, let us not thus betray our ignorance, but consider where we are, and in what a universe. Think of the many parts of the vast machine in which we have so little insight, and of which it is impossible we should know the ends and uses; when instead of seeing to the highest pennons, we see only some lower deck, and are in this dark case of flesh, confined even to the hold and meanest station of the vessel.” There is Mrs. Browning’s usual energy of diction in the exclamation,
“Ay, we are forced, so pent,
To judge the whole too partially, confound
Conclusions. Is there any common phrase
Significant, when the adverb’s heard alone,
The verb being absent, and the pronoun out?
But we, distracted in the roar of life,
Still insolently at God’s adverb snatch,
And bruit against Him that His thought is void,