The Unseen World.pdf

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THE
UNSEEN
WORLD
and other essays
by
John Fiske
Table of Contents
DEDICATION
1. THE UNSEEN WORLD.
2. “THE TO-MORROW OF DEATH.”
3. THE JESUS OF HISTORY.
4. THE CHRIST OF DOGMA.
5. A WORD ABOUT MIRACLES.
6. DRAPER ON SCIENCE AND RELIGION.
7. NATHAN THE WISE.
8. HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES.
9. THE FAMINE OF 1770 IN BENGAL.
10. SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS.
11. LONGFELLOW’S DANTE.
12. PAINE’S “ST. PETER.”
13. A PHILOSOPHY OF ART.
14. ATHENIAN AND AMERICAN LIFE.
TO JAMES SIME.
MY DEAR SIME:
Life has now and then some supreme moments
of pure happiness, which in reminiscence give to
single days the value of months or years. Two or
three such moments it has been my good fortune
to enjoy with you, in talking over the mysteries
which forever fascinate while they forever baffle
us. It was our midnight talks in Great Russell
Street and the Addison Road, and our bright May
holiday on the Thames, that led me to write this
scanty essay on the “Unseen World,” and to
whom could I so heartily dedicate it as to you? I
only wish it were more worthy of its origin. As for
the dozen papers which I have appended to it, by
way of clearing out my workshop, I hope you will
read them indulgently, and believe me
Ever faithfully yours,
JOHN FISKE.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, February 3, 1876.
I. THE UNSEEN WORLD.
PART FIRST.
“ What are you, where did you come from, and
whither are you bound?”— the question which
from Homer’s days has been put to the wayfarer
in strange lands — is likewise the all-absorbing
question which man is ever asking of the
universe of which he is himself so tiny yet so
wondrous a part. From the earliest times the
ultimate purpose of all scientific research has
been to elicit fragmentary or partial responses to
this question, and philosophy has ever busied
itself in piecing together these several bits of
information according to the best methods at its
disposal, in order to make up something like a
satisfactory answer. In old times the best
methods which philosophy had at its disposal for
this purpose were such as now seem very crude,
and accordingly ancient philosophers bungled
considerably in their task, though now and then
they came surprisingly near what would to-day
be called the truth. It was natural that their
methods should be crude, for scientific inquiry
had as yet supplied but scanty materials for them
to work with, and it was only after a very long
course of speculation and criticism that men
could find out what ways of going to work are
likely to prove successful and what are not. The
earliest thinkers, indeed, were further hindered
from accomplishing much by the imperfections
of the language by the aid of which their thinking
was done; for science and philosophy have had to
make a serviceable terminology by dint of long
and arduous trial and practice, and linguistic
processes fit for expressing general or abstract
notions accurately grew up only through
numberless failures and at the expense of much
inaccurate thinking and loose talking. As in most
of nature’s processes, there was a great waste of
energy before a good result could be secured.

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