Nature and Culture

by Harvey Rice

In modern methods of logic, we reason from cause to effect, from the known to the unknown; but in attempting to penetrate the region of the unknown, we are often left without a reliable guide. Analogy may aid, but cannot assure us. The powers of the human mind, if not infinite, may admit of infinite culture. What is supposed to be "unknowable" may therefore become known. However this may be, there is no divine injunction which prescribes a limit to human possibilities.

Whatever we may think or believe, the volume of Nature contains nothing but truth; it is a divine record which is as inexhaustible in its wealth of knowledge as it is conclusive in its logic. Men of science, in attempting to read this unerring record, have advanced many plausible theories in relation to the processes by which the earth acquired its embodiment, and took its place among the golden orbs of heaven.

There are reasons for believing that matter has always existed in some form or other, and that it is infinite in extent as well as in duration. Nor need we hesitate to infer, from the knowledge we have of the various forms in which matter exists, that what is true of the earth in its processes of development is equally true of every other planet.

Whether the earth in its origin was a fragment thrown off from some exploded planet which had filled the measure of its destiny, or whether it arose from the gradual accretion of elementary substances diffused in infinite space, are questions which cannot be satisfactorily answered. Either method is not only plausible, but consistent with the known laws and operations of Nature.

It seems quite probable that those erratic bodies known as comets are but incipient planets, which continue, as they revolve in their mystical flight, to accumulate gaseous matter until they have acquired and condensed a sufficient amount to become orbs, or worlds; when, by the influence of physical forces, they take their places in some one or other of the existing planetary systems. It is thus perhaps that the law of development constructs a world with as much ease as it constructs a grain of sand; nor can we doubt that the processes of aggregation and dissolution are made reciprocal in their relations, and perpetual in their action.

In a philosophical sense, "life" and "death" are but conventional terms, meaning nothing more than a change of matter from one form of existence to another. Whatever changes may take place, matter can neither be increased nor diminished. Infinite space, being an immateriality, could never have been created and cannot therefore be limited or annihilated. In all probability it still is, and always has been, filled with the elements of matter,—too subtile, perhaps, to be perceived, yet destined in the course of eternal ages to be wrought and re-wrought into infinite varieties of corporeal existences, mineral, vegetal, and animal, ever progressing from the imperfect to the perfect. Thus Nature teaches us the lesson that in perfection dwells the central Life, the quickening power of the universe.

In accordance with this view, we may regard every particle of matter in the universe as the germ of a world. And yet what are called original elements may be such, or may not. Supposed monads, or simple unities, if they exist at all, may be capable of analysis by the application of physical agencies or forces as yet unknown to science. Though science has disclosed much that is wonderful in the mechanism of Nature, there still lies before us an infinite unknown. Whether ultimately the human mind will become so enlarged and extended in its powers as to comprehend the infinite, admits of no positive assurance; yet in the unrevealed design of the great future, such may be the result.

It is only in modern times that science has taken the advanced step, and led philosophy into the beautiful avenues of Nature, where, amid the infinite, she gazes at the universe, listens to the music of the spheres, and beholds the golden wealth of the infinite displayed on every side. It is thus that philosophy has become inspired with a desire to account for everything, and finds that Nature has written her own history in the hills and in the rocks, in the depths of the sea, and in the stars of heaven, leaving nothing for man to do except to read the record, and accept its truthful teachings. In fact, the material universe may be regarded as an outspoken revelation of the infinite.