perfectly comprehended. The part that falls under his comprehension bears a still smaller proportion than ever to the enormous whole. And the relationships by which it is bound up into the whole are yet subtler and more infinite than any hitherto under his ken. Far, far out of sight the threads pass; far, far away beyond imagination the tendencies press. Man can recognize in them the evidence of their immeasurable reach; and, therefore, he recognizes also that his actual capacity to cover with his knowledge even the corner of it which he can see is more liable than ever to correction from out of a world of which he is even more ignorant than he was of the other world to which his lower experiences belonged. Any rise in real knowledge must, then, involve an extension also in his appreciation of his own ignorance. Revelation, therefore, by virtue of its raising us to a higher level, will display more gaps, more interspaces of ignorance, more moments of baffling perplexity, than did Natural Religion. Christianity, by extending into infinitudes beyond our natural frontiers, will be more charged with bewilderment and uncertainty than Nature. In the one case, as in the other, the imperfections of our comprehension will be bound to recur; and to recur with increasing emphasis, as we move upwards into contact with fuller Reality. Just because it is so far fuller than anything we touch on a lower level, therefore our relationship to it will be more partial and more limited. We shall be less securely aware of how the part stands to the whole, as our estimate of the whole that is out of our sight expands. Revelation, then, does not only fail to clear up the difficulties that Nature has presented to us already; but, leaving them as they were, it adds many more perplexities of its own.
What, then, is the advantage, of a Revelation? For what has it been given? Why should we care to add to our troubles?
Butler's answer is as noble as it is inspiring.
Revelation is simply the call of God to man to 'Come up higher'. If man has shown himself faithful in few
