The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE EQUINOX FAITH. Doubtless, but they are certainties for me, since without those hypotheses I should be doubtful even about your certainties. SCIENCE. But if you begin where I stop, you begin always too rashly and too soon. My progress bears witness that I am ever advancing. FAITH. What does your progress matter, if I am always walking in front of you ? scIENCE. You, walking! Dreamer of eternity, you have disdained earth too much; your feet are benumbed. FAITH. I make my children carry me. sciENCcE. They are the blind carrying the blind ; beware of precipices| FAITH. No, my children are by no means blind; on the contrary, they enjoy twofold sight: they see, by thine eyes, what thou canst show them upon earth, and they contemplate, by mine, what I show them in Heaven. SCIENCE. What does Reason think of it? REASON. I think, my dear teachers, that you illustrate a touching fable, that of the blind man and the paralytic, Science reproaches Faith with not knowing how to walk upon the earth, and Faith says that Science sees nothing of her aspirations and of eternity in the sky. Instead of quarrelling, Science and Faith ought to unite ; let Science carry Faith, and let Faith console Science by teaching her to hope and to love! SCIENCE. It is a fine ideal, but Utopian. Faith will tell me absurdities. I prefer to walk without her. FAITH. What do you call absurdities? sciENCcE. I call absurdities propositions contrary to my demonstrations; as, for example, that three make one, that a 92