of vision, and in a more
sustained manner, to perform the task which all men are obliged to
perform in some way or other. Man subsists as a natural being only on
condition of comprehending, to some degree, the conditions of his
natural life, and the laws of his natural environment. From earliest
youth upwards, he is learning that fire will burn and water drown, and
that he can play with the elements with safety only within the sphere
lit up by his intelligence. Nature will not pardon the blunders of
ignorance, nor tamely submit to every hasty construction. And this truth
is still more obvious in relation to man's moral life. Here, too, and in
a pre-eminent degree, conduct waits on intelligence. Deep will only
answer unto deep; and great characters only come with much meditation on
the things that are highest. And, on the other hand, the misconstruction
of life's meaning flings man back upon himself, and makes his action
nugatory. Byronism was driven "howling home again," says the poet. The
universe will not be interpreted in terms of sense, nor be treated as
carrion, as Carlyle said. There is no rest in the "Everlasting No,"
because it is a wrong view of man and of the world. Or rather, the
negative is not everlasting; and man is driven onwards by despair,
through the "Centre of Indifference," till he finds a "Universal Yea"--a
true view of his relation to the universe.

There is given to men the largest choice to do or to let alone, at every
step in life. But there is one necessity which they cannot escape,
because they carry it within them. They absolutely must try to make the
world their home, find some kind of reconciling idea between themselves
and the forces amidst which they move, have some kind of working
hypothesis of life. Nor is it possible to admit that they will find rest
till they discover a true hypothesis. If they do not seek it by
reflection--if, in their ardour to penetrate into the secrets of nature,
they forget themselves; if they allow the supreme facts of their moral
life to remain in the confusion of tradition, and seek to compromise the
demands of their spirit by sacrificing to the idols of their childhood's
faith; if they fortify themselves in the indifference of
agnosticism,--they must reap the harvest of their irreflection.
Ignorance is not harmless in matters of character any more than in the
concerns of our outer life. There are in national and in individual
history seasons of despair, and