It is, nevertheless, to be understood that all the affection of knowing is not of man alone, but continually of God operating in man, and that, consequently, all science is not the creature of mere human exertion, industry, and talent, separate from God, but is rather to be regarded as the blessed fruit of God's continual operation in man, tending to produce that heavenly birth of knowledge without which man would be utterly incapable of enjoying his proper happiness, because utterly incapable either of loving God or of connecting himself with God.
It deserves further to be considered, that the birth of science is an indefinite or unlimited effect, capable of advancing to any degree short of infinite, and that in this consists the perfection of man above the inferior creatures. For the inferior creatures, it is well known, are born into the science of all things necessary for them to know; but then they are incapable of further progress: whereas man, though born in ignorance, has the faculty of growing in science to all eternity.
hus, then, all science has its birth properly from God, because from the affection of knowing, which God inspires; and thus man, as to science, is the perpetual child of the Most High, and possesses besides, in himself, a continual testimony of the Divine presence and operation, resulting from the continual existence and exercise of the astonishing faculty of science thence derived.
