ys he, "were presented to a man, it would
certainly be unreasonable in him to deny the fact, merely because he could
not reconcile it with the stability of everything on the earth's surface.
Or if he saw two rays of light made to produce darkness, must he resist
the evidence of his senses, because he knows that two candles give more
light than one? Men do not act thus irrationally in physical
investigations. They let each fact stand upon its own evidence. They
strive to reconcile them, and are happy when they succeed. But they do not
get rid of difficulties by denying facts.

"If in the department of physical knowledge we are obliged to act upon the
principle of receiving every fact upon its own evidence, even when unable
to reconcile one with another, it is not wonderful that this necessity
should be imposed upon us in those departments of knowledge which are less
within the limits of our powers. It is certainly irrational for a man to
reject all the evidence of the spirituality of the soul, because he cannot
reconcile this doctrine with the fact that a disease of the body disorders
the mind. Must I do violence to my nature in denying the proof of design
afforded by the human body, because I cannot account for the occasional
occurrence of deformities of structure? Must I harden my heart against all
the evidence of the benevolence of God, which streams upon me in a flood
of light from all his works, because I may not know how to reconcile that
benevolence with the existence of evil? Must I deny my free-agency, the
most intimate of all convictions, because I cannot see the consistency
between the freeness of an act and the frequency of its occurrence? May I
deny that I am a moral being, the very glory of my nature, because I
cannot change my character at will?"(136)

If this judicious sentiment had been observed by speculatists, it had been
well for philosophy, and still better for religion. The heresy of
Pelagius, and the countless forms of kindred errors, would not have
infested human thought. But this sentiment, however just in itself, or
however elegantly expressed, should not be permitted to inspire our minds
with a feeling of despair. It should teach us caution, but not
despondency; it should extinguish presumption, but not hope. For if "we
strive to reconcile the facts" of the natural world, "and are happy when
we succeed," how much more solicitous should we be to succeed in such an
attempt to shut up and seal the