[Solar-cd-sl-win] Ties; into what boundless l

Sat Dec 26 17:07:28 CET 2009

Nd sunders every ligament that binds us to practical life. We must have
faith in something or we stand on no promises; we can predicate nothing.
It may be said that in the experience of the past we have a guide for
the future; but then, must we not have faith in experience? Do we not
trust something which is not yet demonstrated when we say "This cause
which produced that effect yesterday will produce a similar effect today
or tomorrow?" How do we know--positively know, that it will produce that
effect, and what are the grounds of our knowledge? This boasted "cause
and effect," this "experience," what right have we to rely upon it for
one moment of the future? Not for that moment has it demonstrated
anything;--it demonstrated for the time being, and the time being only;
and our confidence that it will do so again is faith, not sight--faith
in cause and effect, faith in experience, but faith after all. Hume, the
philosopher, has illustrated the positions which have now been taken.
"As to past experience," says he, "it can be allowed to give direct and
certain information of those precise objects only, and that precise
period of time which fell under its cognizance; but why this experience
should be extended to future times, and to other objects, which for
aught we know may be only in appearance similar; this is the main
question on which I would insist. The bread which I formerly ate
nourished me; that is, a body of such sensible qualities was, at that
time, endued with such secret powers; but does it follow that other
bread must also nourish me at another time, and that like sensible
qualities must also be attended with like secret powers? The consequence
seems nowise necessary." And yet we eat our bread, day by day, without a
doubt or a fear. We sow the grain and we reap the wheat, but for all the
work is done in faith, and the whole process is steeped in mystery. In
that scattering of the golden seed, what confidence is expressed in
elements that we cannot see, in beneficent agencies that we cannot
control, in results that are beyond our power, and that in their growth
and development are full of wonder excee
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