Douay or New York, which? : Or, reason, revelation, and responsibility coordinate

CHAPTER I. Seeking the Truth

Common sense is the best sense, if by it we mean "practical understanding or the capacity to see and take things in their right light." The average man has this faculty, and to it an appeal should be made for the ascertainment of such actualities as are needed to be known by those who must "give account" in the great beyond. This power of the human mind that we call "common sense" is undoubtedly equal to the duty imposed upon it, of knowing some things that do not at the first mention of them appear very plain. Acquired knowledge is as certain as any other, provided the acquisition thereof be by a course of thought that admits no deception. Even discoveries that originally required more than an ordinary genius, when once demonstrated, become perfectly clear to the multitude.

The mind that first thought out the great demonstration of the proposition "that the square described on the longest side of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides" evidently possessed remarkable talent; but after his demonstrative work he was as sure as to the truth of the assertion as he was sure of the axiom, "Things

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equal to the same thing are equal to each other." Still further it may be said that mathematicians of far less genius than the original discoverer have all through the history of mathematics felt in the same way; nor can we deny that mechanics who might be unable to go through the proof as given in geometry are positively certain that when they apply the rule called "six, eight, and ten" to the corner of the house frame there will be the angle of a square at the junction of the sills. Why is this? The learned man will reply by referring to the proposition aforesaid, and say: "The square of six is thirty-six, and the square of eight is sixty-four ; sixty-four added to thirty-six makes one hundred, which number is the square of ten ; therefore the angle opposite the ten feet side must be a right angle." The mechanic may say : "It has been tried thousands of times, and hence it is known to be true that when six feet are measured on one sill and eight feet are measured on the other, and then the sills be so joined at the ends that a line ten feet long will exactly reach from the point marked eight to the point marked six, the corner formed will be square." The knowledge of each is acquired, but no one doubts the certainty of it.

On this doctrine relative to acquired knowledge the investigators of natural science (as well as the mathematicians above named) proceed. From things known to things unknown the road is one of inquiry, and the seeker of truth tries to be perfectly sure as to each step of progress, that it is in the right direction. As the student of geometry starts with axioms (known truths or intuitions) and proceeds to the solution of

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the most difficult problems in the task of measurement, so the student of the outer world must take truths known by perceptive experiences and go onward to discoveries in the beyond, all the time taking great care that no link in the chain of logic is defective and no fact of perception misunderstood. The physical senses (sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch) must receive due attention as channels of sense perception, and all the varied ways by which "illusion" may cause deception must be duly guarded.

The properties of the understanding mind must be studied and appreciated. When all this is done, surely there is certainty of the knowledge acquired by perception, as there is certainty in the assertion that "two and two make four."

The truth seeker here has no necessity to think that he is unable to know that he sav: a farmer planting corn (because the sensation produced on the organ of vision might possibly have been an optical illusion), nor will he doubt on the ground that philosophers assert the impossibility of knowing more than appearances, while "things in themselves" must remain unknown. The "phenomenon" appearance, and the "noumenon" thing in itself, as talked of by Immanuel Kant, will hardly perplex the searcher after facts of experience: If there should be any need of extra care in the ascertainment of what the farmer was placing in the ground, or if the observer desired to have further evidence than that of sight as to the man or the grain, he might easily bring the corroborative testimony of touch and hearing; but when the individual can say, "The eye has seen and the hand has handled the material of the man and the grain, and the ear has heard the voice of the man and the rattling of the grain," it would be impossible to convince that person that he was ignorant of what he asserted as to the fact. No judge or jury could or would demand testimony from the other two physical senses. Though all this is plain enough to "common sense," it may yet be added that when a large number of sight-seers and handlers gave the same assertion as to the act spoken of, certainty of fact is rendered complete.

That illusions of sense perception have marked human history cannot be denied. Caesar, in his celebrated history of the Gallic War, tells of a man who brought to him a report of having seen certain things in regard to the enemies' forces, but after investigation the writer placed upon the historic page the assertion that this man had told "what he did not see for what he did see." Stories of ghosts and hobgoblins have belonged to many classes of human beings, and no doubt some of them honestly believed. From toilers in science the student has learned how bunches of luscious grapes seemed to be before the eyes; but when the hand was put forth to grasp the tempting fruit, its possessor found nothing to reward his exertion. Two quotations from men of thought may here be appropriately given. They are taken from the Standard Dictionary: "The judgment of many excellent persons is liable to be infected by illusions of the imagination." (H. Butterworth, "Journeys in Northern Lands," Chapter III., p. 49.) "We may thus roughly define an illusion of perception as con-

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sisting in the formation of a quasi percept which is peculiar to an individual or which is contradicted by another and presumably more accurate percept." (Sully, "Illusions," Chapter III., p. 38.)

It is very clear that the searcher after realities in Nature's arcana must be ever watchful against two possible sources of error: the first is mistaking an appearance, the second is false reasoning as to a true appearance. The man who would declare himself willing to make an oath that he saw real ships, masts downward, sailing in the heavens where he had only witnessed "a mirage" would give an illustration of the first danger ; but the second danger may be argued from the example of the supposed reasoner who would deny that any such appearance as that called "a mirage" was ever witnessed, because all the ships he himself ever saw were real. Each of the two gentlemen should have known something of the laws of light before making positive assertions of the kind named. The testimony of more than one of the physical senses added to the declaration of multitudes of persons possessing similar physical powers must convince the observer of certainty as to fact. No one would or could suppose that Napoleon Bonaparte when he fled from the bloody field of Waterloo had any doubt of the terrible character of the day's experience. Equally certain must that renowned Frenchman afterwards have been of the vast ocean whose waters surrounded his prison island, St. Helena.

The student of nature certainly acknowledges the possibility of error in the use of sense preception ; but

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he as certainly knows that there is a limit somewhere to such possibility, and hence, having reached a convincing amount of observation or experiment, he confidently makes the assertion : "I cannot be mistaken as to the fact or truth learned." Should the metaphysical reasoner come to such a person and talk eloquently of the small capability of the human mind; should the astronomer declare that no claim can be made to a knowledge of the sun and the planets, as only appearances (phenomena) had come to the eye of the stargazer; should the equally honest and true philosopher assert that no "thing in itself" had ever been seen or known and the truth was clear that such a "thing" could never be known — the unsophisticated, common-sense searcher after facts would, with positive assurance, reply somewhat as follows — viz. : "Admitting that 'the thing itself cannot do more than give its image or appearance [phenomenon] to my perceptive faculties, I know that my understanding, my common sense is within and assures me that a real thing must be in existence when I receive the appearances thereof through such trustworthy channels. There would be no picture of the farmer on the expansion of my optic nerve were there no farmer within the range of my vision, and the fact that the rays of light entering my eye give the true locality of the said farmer is assured by the touch and by the sense of hearing, as well as by personal witnesses having the same pictures on their optic nerves. The possibility of illusion by mirrors is excluded (by these undoubted witnesses) because there are no mirrors near ; the course of the rays is direct, no refraction or reflec-

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tion is possible. Hence I know that the farmer was planting corn."

By thoughts similar to those pointed out in the preceding lines man becomes as certain of facts observed as the geometer is certain of the first proposition founded upon the axiom "the whole is equal to all its parts." He has only to be careful as to the character of his observation. It must be honestly made for the purpose of securing a knowledge of facts. Dr. W Stanly Jevon (in "Logic," p. 201) says : "All knowledge, it may be safely said, must be ultimately founded upon experience, which is but a general name for the various feelings impressed upon the mind at any period of its existence. The mind never creates entirely new knowledge independent of experience, and all that the reasoning power can do is to arrive at the full meaning of the facts which are in our possession." Farther on in the same book may be found the following words of caution : "Nothing is more important in observation and experiment than to be uninfluenced by any prejudice or theory in correctly recording the facts observed and allowing to them their proper weight. He who does not do /so will almost always be able to obtain facts in support of an opinion however erroneous."

Now fully cautioned as to possible error, but as fully assured as to the amount of perceptive action necessary to reach certainty as to reality in observation, the truth seeker investigates the motive and the process of corn-planting. He learns from the farmer that his object in apparently throwing away grains of corn is to have a much larger number of grains pro-

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duced in the course of a .few months, and he expects each grain of "the crop" to be exactly like the grain buried in the ground. Reflecting upon this wonderful matter of reproduction, the investigator leaves the farmer at his work ; but after about two weeks he returns and discovers that during his absence much work has been accomplished, not by the farmer but by a mysterious action or movement in the soil. From each grain planted has proceeded a little screwlike sprout which in some cases has already developed into little blades of fodder. Desiring to know something of the workshop concealed underground, the observer digs up several "hills" of corn, and finds another sprout (of an entirely different disposition from the one reaching the upper air) attached to each grain. He learns from other investigators that the names agreed upon for these sprouts are "the plumule" and "the caulicle." The one seeks the upper air and sunlight ; the other, satisfied with less air and light, works; in comparative darkness. The one seems to seek ma-j terials floating in the atmosphere, the other equally eager to gather food from the soil; both show the* same design of activity, that of building a cornstalM and hanging thereon an "ear" of corn. Neither cam do the work of the other; but neither can work with-, out the cooperative work of the other. No amount of manipulation on the part of the farmer can make the plumule live and work under ground; nor can the caulicle be induced to perform its functions outside of the soil. There is an apparent stubbornness here, absolutely unconquerable by any artifice of man. Each worker in its own way will bring its contribu-

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tion to the ultimate result; and the two contributions meeting in the appointed place will afford the scientific botanist and agricultural chemist a field of study as interesting as astonishing.

But now our observer, leaving the cornfield to go to a professional chemist for testing the laws of affinity and the formation of chemical compounds, reaches percepts or truths which, while they astonish and perplex him, must whet his appetite for further knowledge as to the plant growth in the field he was erewhile watching. After a sufficient time he returns to the field, and there his eyes are greeted with an extended and enchanting view as instructive to him as joyous to the farmer. The plumule and caulicle have accomplished a wonderful transformation. Blades from the former and roots from the latter are discoverable engaged in cooperative and industrious exertion to support a rapidly growing fruitage. Coming to an examination of the stalks one by one, the student finds at angles made by the jointure of blades and stalks, appearances are seen which the farmer calls "shoots." Some of these have already sent forth beautifully colored "silks," while all are expected to do the same ; also at the summit of each stalk has appeared what the farmer calls a "tassel," very important in the fertilization of the shoots at the angles where the "roasting ears" are soon to appear. The very mysterious communication of a fertilizer from tassel to silk, and the resulting formation of cob and grains, must be an example of the employment of even the mildest zephyr breezes to contribute to the

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purpose of the work in which roots and blades are engaged.

At the approach of the end of summer the silks become dry, as do the tassels, the milky "roasting ears" have reached a hardened condition, and soon the farmer, having pulled the fodder for cattle food, begins to gather the corn ears for human food as well as that for the horses and hogs he has to feed. The cornstalk and its roots have accomplished their task; they have delivered up what was valuable ; life is gone, activity has ceased; "No sound can awaken the stalk or root to glory again."

Our observer, now coming to investigate what product the farmer has stored in his "corncrib," asks if the grains are exactly like those planted in the springtime. An affirmative reply is received; but the inquisitive mind determines upon a chemical analysis, calling up the information that he had gained on the visit to the laboratory while the corn was growing. Now upon subjecting each grain to the most careful dissection and each part to the most certain chemical tests, the reproduction of corn grains is thoroughly established. The chemist performs his experiments in full view of the gazer and points out the exact amount of starch, proteids, ash, and other ingredients seen and handled from each crop, the old and the new. He learns what is meant by an "embryo" as "the rudimentary plant within the seed which makes its appearance soon after the fertilization of the ovule by the pollen." He accords truth to Asa Gray ("Field Book of Botany") when he says: "The youngest seedling, and even the embryo in the seed, is already an epitome

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of the herb or tree." Verily he learns enough to know that there is obedience to the law of seeds to produce each after its kind. A grain of corn will not produce an apple.

This further information is gained by the visit to the analytic chemist — viz., that each of the parts (as starch, etc.) of the seed corn is a compound. Starch is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, in fixed proportions (C6H10O5). The proteids are composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulphur; and in reference to them it is said (after varied and convincing experiments) : "The proteids are the most important animal and vegetable compounds, and none of the phenomena of life occur without their presence. They possess common chemical reactions, and are united by close genetic relationship."

The chemist explains the difference between "molecules" and "atoms," and shows how each molecule of starch has as many as twenty-one atoms (6-j-io-}-5). Hence the rational power of the student by compulsion reaches the conclusion that chemical work has been performed throughout this remarkable journey of elements from the roots underground to the varied deposits, each deposit in its appropriate place to form a seed suited for planting the next spring. The molecules of starch made in this journey are to form the bulky part of the grain, while the other compounds are to concentrate in that part which the farmer calls the "heart;" and in this heart is to be that peculiar and delicate placement of requisites for a "germ" that is to be quickened into vegetative life for the sprouting, etc.

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The next step taken in the search for truth may be in visiting the forest in the same neighborhood. Here under large oak trees are found acorns, valuable as food for swine. In one place is seen a little oak having only three or four leaves. Examination of the roots reveals the plan of sprouting similar to that observed in the corn crop. The plumule has sought the upper air, the caulicle has sent rootlets into the soil. If the truth seeker will employ the closest scrutiny during the growth of an oak tree, he will find the same great factors which he observed in corn production here engaged in the making of a structure from which acorns are to be the fruit.

The leaves of the tree gather carbonic acid from the atmosphere, appropriating the carbon to the building of woody fiber, while the oxygen is sent back to the air to supply man and beast with vital breath. The roots go in every direction in the soil to become channels for the conveyance of ingredients needed to produce what shall afterwards be found in ashes. The whole machinery evidently has the twofold design of securing timber for man's use and acorns for seed from which to grow future trees.

A very remarkable discovery is at this point made by the deeply interested observer. He finds that the little oak refuses to follow the cornstalk in the cessation of vegetative life at the approach of frost. It drops its leaves, but in its roots and trunk retains vitality for giving forth new leaves in the springtime. It is called a perennial, not an annual, plant.

Now let the investigator examine all the seeds he can possibly secure and gather all information to be

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had from farmers, gardeners, and foresters, and he will surely be able to state an invariable law of the vegetable world, to the effect that root sprouts (caulicles) seek the soil that has the ingredients designed for transit by root carriage to growing plants; while the upward sproutings (plumules) refuse to go downward, but seek air and light by means of which they are to contribute to the same great end, that of building a vegetable structure. It will also be discovered that the two agencies, the plumule and the caulicle, work in the utmost harmony, and their contributions meet in the appropriate place and are formulated into the various parts of woody fiber or fruits or flowers.

The worker in this vast field of investigation may be startled but not alarmed when he is brought to the task of considering the number of seeds in any one variety and the number of varieties found in the make-up of the croppage from the earth's crust. He sees design in the result before his eyes. Not a supply for planting alone is secured, but a vast amount of food for men and animals is taken in the round of vegetable activity. Only a comparatively small number of corn or wheat grains will go back to the soil. The burdened ships of commerce may be summoned as evidence of this fact. The number of grass seeds given to the singing birds in this wonderful circuit will given an idea of the wisdom found in the known truth that one seed will render hundreds if not thousands in reproduction. Nor will our thoughtful student of Nature's workshop stop here. He thinks of the vast number of varieties of seeds and learns that 2 17

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many of these varieties are not contributors to the supply of food to the eater, but live and die seemingly for a very different purpose. The display of beauty seems to be the object of their existence. The eye of man is gratified by this display; and hence the line, "The earth is flecked with flowers many-tinted, fresh and gay," is not void of its philosophy. In the Botanical Garden of the Agricultural College where this is written there are largely over two thousand varieties of plants which may be classed as beautifiers. The incidental feeding of bees and other specimens of life will by no means detract from the wisdom of the arrangement. As beauty is seen as an incident in those growths whose main object seems to be the production of food, so here the incidental giving of a repast to the sucking bee may not detract from the great object of beauty for the eye.

Our observant friend, having gone thus far in his search without taking any appearance as fact until verified by evidence that called for certainty, proceeds to some elevated position from which he can view an extended landscape. Here he is forced to the conclusion that all vegetation has two objects in view — viz., the support of animal life and the giving of comfort and gratification during that life. The cultivated and the uncultivated patches before him in their unmistakable teaching show oneness of design as belonging to all the processes that have been subjected to thoughtful examination. Fruits, flowers, wood, resulting in food, beauty, and prospective houses and firesides, can make no other impression upon the mind

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than that of adaptation to the ends mentioned. The picture afforded by the landscape is indeed beautiful to behold ; but the utility of its parts can scarcely fail to cause the thinker to refer to the minutiae of the varied activity that he has studied from the seed in the soil to the blooming flowers and ripening fruits for man's advantage, all contributors to the grand result.

In the study of the picture thus presented to the human eye, the questions will very naturally arise : How much of the production was under the authority of the beneficiaries? How much can man do in the work of his own support? The farmer was credited with choosing to plant, to plow and hoe, and in the season therefor he chose to gather the corn; but all the process of growth was beyond his control. Nor could he by the aid of all the chemists in the laboratories of the world reproduce a grain of corn sufficiently vital to germinate, after the process of analysis. The chemist must say : "I can take to pieces, but I am unable to replace the parts. Analysis is mine, but synthesis is beyond my skill." Life (even vegetable life) is from a power higher than that of an earthly laborer.

The truth here presented is as solemn as it is instructive. If all the grains of corn on this globe were in a day robbed of their germs, nothing less than the original Creator could supply seed corn for the next season. The chemist might put together the exact proportions of the elements found in the heart of the grain and surround the whole with starch in the exact quantity he had observed, but the parts would refuse

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to do the work of vegetable life. It is equally true that if the twig or limb of a tree be cut off from the source of vitality death must ensue ; and once dead, the twig cannot be made to go onward with the process of life by any human skill.

If the farmer before mentioned had seen a brother farmer with a bucket of corn meal or a basket of "rat-eaten" corn designing to put either or both in the soil with the expectation of securing sprouts, cornstalks, and ears of corn therefrom, and this planter should give as the reason for his conduct that he had learned from chemical analysis that all the elements of seed corn were in the materials he was placing in the soil, the prospect of one more unfortunate human being receiving an invitation to the insane asylum would be very apparent. Our common sense thinker seems necessarily compelled to adopt the idea that vitality in the vegetative circuit, beginning with the sprouting of the seed and going on to the consummation of a crop for animal food, must have come from a designing power greater than that known to belong to any inhabitant of the earth. Man may be said to make a rake, a hoe, a plow, from the material in his reach ; but he can never be named as the manufacturer of the heart of a seed or of the life current in a tree.

Proceeding now to what is called the animal kingdom, our searcher finds that the number and complexity of varieties in living organisms must bewilder or defy the thought of individual examination ; but fortunately for him, there are two positively

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known facts that may give sufficient information to enable him to speak with certainty as to knowledge. The one fact is that, in obedience to the principle of division of labor, multitudes of investigative toilers have taken different departments of this great field (many of them devoting special activity for a life work), so that zoology has become a science with about fourteen departments, such as ornithology (birds), herpetology (reptiles), ichthyology (fishes), etc. ; and the facts brought out by these scientists have been so demonstrated that knowledge of even microscopic beings has become public property. The second truth to which reference was made above is that our student can by personal observation for a short time obtain from the meat market, and from farm as well as street, animal activity enough of certainty to satisfy the mind as to an argument.

Giving entire credence to the facts discovered by scientific toilers (because their statements have so many witnesses to establish their truth), our investigator selects for special examination a specimen of animal product that he can study without the aid of a microscope, and one meeting the constant gaze of men. He takes an egg of the barnyard fowl and studies and wonders, and wonders and studies. An outer coating made of carbonate of lime seems to afford protection to the softer materials. Within the shell is found a layer of albumen, a substance exactly similar to that found in the human cranium, and called brain matter. Farther toward the center is seen the yolk, of a rich yellow color and containing as component elements phosphates, sulphates, etc.

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In addition to these known things found in an egg* (which things can be brought to a chemical test), there is a germ, or prospective vitality, without which no chicken birth can be secured. As was seen in the case of seeds, this possible vitality can be made active only by certain conditions in this case of warmth, such as the "sitting hen" affords. It is also discovered that here (as in seeds) analysis may be in the chemist's power, but synthesis never. There is no human skill that can manufacture an egg. Even the placing of the identical ingredients back in the same shell from which they were taken will not make an egg that will "hatch." The Life Giver must do his own work in the germ factory. The delicate and mysterious placement of materials must be made by a wisdom unattainable by man; and it is equally true that the subsequent life current in the living chicken cannot be produced by any less power. Man can kill a chicken, but he cannot cause that chicken to live

*The analysis of the yolk as given by chemists is about as follows — viz. :

Vitelline (a form of albumen) .. 15.76

Margerine and oleine (named from resemblance to