An Address

25

find it difficult to get behind that, or to substitute
 anything for it. It is what has brought
you here this afternoon ; it is what is making
me talk to you. And it is the basis of our
Religion.

If now we are so far agreed, and ask our good
lady Reason—whom we must not forget to
thank for her previous instruction in the rudiments—how
 she proposes to educate our desire
for good, might she not tell us that there are
three things that she can do? (1) To feed our
native faculty on a generous diet of wholesome
food, and that is OPPORTUNITY Or ENVIRONMENT.
(2) To instruct us as to the qualities and effects
of the various kinds of ¢ Goods’, or things that
men desire, and that is VALUES or wisboM
(3) To inform us of the actual attainment to
which men (like ourselves) have already arrived,
so that we may profit by their experience, and
that is KNOWLEDGE OI SCIENCE.
This last head, Science and Knowledge, is the
especialfield of Reason, where she rules absolutely;
and if we may now pass it over lightly, that is
not because it is a small matter, but rather