Improvement Era, Vol. 7

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Excerpt from Improvement Era, Vol. 7: Organ of Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, January, 1904With reference to our absolute knowledge of the phenomena of nature, this splendid comparison is as correct today as it was in the days of Plato, about 400 B. C., we are only as prisoners in a great cave, watching shadows of passing objects thrown upon the cavern wall, and re¿ecting upon the real natures of the things whose shadows we see. We know things only by their effects, the essential nature of matter and energy is far from our understand mg.In early and mediaeval times, the recognition of the fact that nature in its ultimate form is unknowable, led to many harmful superstitions. Chief among the fallacies of the early ages was the belief that God at will could, and did, cause various phenomena to appear in nature, which might be contrary to all human experience. As observed in the last article, a class of men arose who claimed to be in possession of knowledge which made them also able, at will, to cause various supernatural manifestations. Thus arose the occult sciences, so called, - alchemy, astrology, magic, witchcraft, and all other similar abominations of the intellect. Such beliefs made the logical study of nature super¿uous, for any apparent regularity or law in nature might at any time be overturned by a person in possession of a formula of the black art or a properly treated broomstick.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.