argued from the unknowable, but disputed over the name and
attributes of the inconceivable. Huxley said he did not know,
which was equivalent to the dogmatic assertion that he did;
Gladstone said he did know, which was a confession of ignorance
denser than that of agnosticism.
Those men who try not to think or reason concerning the infinite
simply imprison themselves within the four walls of the cell they
construct. It is better to think and be wrong than not to think at
all. Any assumption is better than no assumption, any belief
better than none.
Hypotheses enlarge the boundaries of knowledge. With assumptions
the intellectual prospector stakes out the infinite. In life we
may not verify our premises, but death is the proof of all things.
We stopped at Wright's tavern, where patriots used to meet before
the days of the revolution, and where Major Pitcairn is said--
wrongfully in all probability--to have made his boast on the
morning of the 19th, as he stirred his toddy, that they would stir
the rebels' blood before night.
One realizes that "there is but one Concord" as the carriages of
pilgrims are counted in the Square, and the swarm of young guides,
with pamphlets and maps, importune the chance visitor.
We chose the most persistent little urchin, not that we could not
find our way about so small a village, but because he wanted to
ride, and it is always interesting to draw out a child; his story
of the town and its famous places was, of course, the one he had
learned from the others, but his comments were his own, and the
incongruity of going over the sacred ground in an automobile had
its effect.
It was a short run down Monument Street to the turn just beyond
the "Old Manse." Here the British turned to cross the North Bridge
on their way to Colonel Barrett's house, where the ammunition was
stored. Just across the narrow bridge the "embattled farmers stood
and fired the shot heard round the world." A monument marks the
spot where the British received the fire of the farmers, and a
stone at the side recites "Graves of two British soldiers,"--
unknown wanderers from home they surrendered their lives in a
quarrel, the merits of which they did not know. "Soon was their
warfare ended; a weary night march from Boston, a rattling volley
of musketry across the river, and then these many years of rest.
In the long procession of slain invaders who passed into eternity
from the battle-field of the revolution, th
|