But that very ambiguous word has a totally different meaning
in the two cases. Science bids us recognize the inevitable limitation of
our powers, and the feebleness of any individual as compared with the
mass. We can do but little: and at every step we are dependent upon the
co-operation of countless millions of our race and an indefinite series
of past generations. We are like the coral insects, who can add but a
hair's breadth to the structure which has been raised by their
predecessors. Yet the little which we can do is something; and we will
neither degrade ourselves nor our race. As measured by an absolute
standard, man may be infinitesimal, but the absolute is beyond our
powers. Science tells us that our little individuality might be swept
out of existence without appreciable injury to the world; but it adds
that the world is built up of infinitesimal atoms, and that each must
co-operate in the general result. Theology crushes us into nothingness
by placing us in the presence of the infinite God; and then compensates
by making us divine ourselves. Man is a mere worm, but he can by
priestly magic bring God to earth; he is hopelessly ignorant, but set on
a throne and properly manipulated he becomes an infallible vice-God; he
is a helpless creature, and yet this creature can define with more than
scientific accuracy the precise nature of his inconceivable Creator; he
grovels on the ground as a miserable sinner and stands up to declare
that he is the channel of Divine inspiration; all his wisdom is
ignorance, but he has written one book of which every line is absolutely
perfect: and meanwhile that which one man singles out as the Divine
element is to another the diabolical, so strangely dim is our vision,
and so imperceptible is the difference between the Infinite and the
infinitesimal.
Pages:
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304