For the matter in hand is no mere felicity of speculation, but the real business and fortunes of the human race, and all power of operation.
For man is but the servant and interpreter of nature: what he does and what he knows is only what he has observed of nature's order in fact or in thought; beyond this he knows nothing and can do nothing.

For the chain of causes cannot by any force be loosed or broken, nor can nature be commanded except by being obeyed.

And so those twin objects, human Knowledge and human Power, do really meet in one; and it is from ignorance of causes that operation fails.
And all depends on keeping the eye steadily fixed upon the facts of nature and so receiving their images simply as they are.

For God forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a pattern of the world; rather may he graciously grant to us to write an apocalypse or true vision of the footsteps of the Creator imprinted on his creatures.
Therefore do thou, O Father, who gavest the visible light as the first fruits of creation, and didst breathe into the face of man the intellectual light as the crown and consummation thereof, guard and protect this work, which coming from thy goodness returneth to thy glory.

Thou when thou turnedst to look upon the works which thy hands had made, sawest that all was very good, and didst rest from thy labours.