Section 3.—The Growth of Science.
Science, like everything else derived from God and proper to man, has its growth, and this growth is gradual, according to the operation of the affection from which it is first born, and the exercise of that operation. It commences in the state of infancy, and is continued through every successive period of man’s life, receiving perpetual increments, until it attains to the full maturity of its growth. It therefore has its ages, which may be compared with the ages of man himself, called youth, manhood, and old age, and its state is various according to those ages; for in youth it is comparatively tender and infirm, in its manhood it acquires a greater firmness and stability, and in its old age it becomes more tranquil and composed.
There is, then, no part of man’s life in which the growth of science is not continued; and, since neither science, nor the affection by which it is introduced, are of man, but entirely of the Lord, therefore there is no part of man’s life in which he is not a subject of the Divine presence, operation, and formation, for the purpose of preparing him to become an instrument of use, both in this world and in the other: the law of which preparation is, that he shall imbibe and grow in all that science which is necessary to make him such an instrument, and thus increase his blessedness both here and hereafter.
