By Their Fruits by Dr. J. G. Holland

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 8, 1875

By their Fruits.

By Dr. J. G. Holland

Was it Thackeray who said that the difference between genius and talent was the difference between the length of two maggots? It was worthy of him, at least, and like him. When a man gets large enough to know that he is almost infinitely small, he is tolerably ripe. When he becomes wise enough to realize that his wisdom is folly, his profoundest learning ignorance, and his opinions, drawn from partial views of truth and its relations, of little value, he has risen into a realm where he drops his robe of pride, and drapes himself in the garment of docility. The simplicity and the teachableness of great men have been the wonder of the vulgar through all time. At the beginning of our late civil war, a capitalist from the country came to New York for the purpose of acquiring a stock of financial information. What was to be the effect of this war upon the finances of the country? How should he manage to save his wealth? How should he manage to increase it? These were the questions he put to the wisest financier he knew. The old man pointed to an apple-woman across the street. “Go and ask her,” he said; “she knows just as much about it as I do.” Yet opinions in Wall street, were as plenty as blackberries, while the results of the war, as they accumulate, proved that they were beyond human sagacity to foresee, and that the man most competent to foresee them had no more financial prescience than the ignorant apple-woman.

There is a realm of inquiry—indeed, there are many realms of inquiry—where the opinions and speculations of one man are just as valuable as those of another man—no more so, no less—for those of both are valueless. The speculations of such a man as Mr. Tyndall on the origin of life attract a great deal of attention; yet Mr. Tyndall knows just as much about the origin of life as the apple-woman on the corner, and no more. The speculations about development and atoms, and molecules, form, perhaps, an elevated amusement. They are better than the hippodrome and the negro minstrels, without being more instructive. It is better to speculate on the atomic theory than to play battledoor and shuttlecock. It is better to speculate a personal God out of the universe than to go on a spree—better to ignore his work than to mar it. But the whole thing rises no higher than elevated amusement. It does not give even the smallest basis for sound opinion. All these speculators, wrapped around with scientific reputations, battering vainly against the limits of thought and scientific knowledge, and coming back with their reports of having seen something more than their fellows, are pretenders—to be praised, perhaps, for their enterprise, but laughed at for their conclusions.

Mr. Tyndall finds in matter the promise and the potency of all forms and qualities of life. Who put the promise and the potency there? Ah! that is the question, and Mr. Tyndall has not solved it. He goes no farther, perhaps, than to say that he finds them there. Has he found them there? In what form have they presented themselves to his scientific investigation? Can he show what he has found? Alas! he has found nothing new—seen nothing that others have not seen. He has only come to a personal conclusion and indulged in a personal speculation, and that conclusion and that speculation are not only unscientific, but they are valueless.

Is there not some way—some scientific way—in which a just conclusion may be arrived at concerning this great subject? If we should stand at the beginning of the world, and know the want of bread, would it not be very unscientific for us to get together a bundle of seeds or germs and speculate as to which would be the most likely to give us bread? Would it not be better to plant every seed, label its bed, watch its growth, and examine its fruits? Would not that be the scientific way of ascertaining the nature and characteristics of the great power that was to feed us? Certainly that seed which would yield the best results, and address itself most directly and beneficently to our wants, would be the one to which we should give our faith. To do anything else would be to rebel against the law of our nature. To do anything else would be irrational and unscientific.

Well, certain seeds have been planted in the world of mind. They have borne, in various times, and in many countries, their legitimate fruits. Can we not find, in the adaptation of those fruits to human want, a scientific conclusion concerning the tree or plant that bears them? Is it not strictly scientific to conclude that the better the fruit, and the better its results, the more thoroughly is the seed vitalized by everlasting and essential truth? If certain ideas of the nature and character of God, and of the immortality of the soul—if certain ideas of human responsibility—have dignified humanity more, elevated it more, civilized it more, purified its morals, sweetened its society, stimulated its hopes, assuaged its sorrows, developed its benevolence, and repressed its selfishness, more than any other ideas, are not those ideas scientifically ascertained to be nearer the truth than any others? If they are not, then we misunderstand the nature and the processes of science.

There has been abroad in the world, for many centuries, an idea, advanced and maintained by more religions than one, that there is at the head of the universe an Almighty God—a Spirit who has created all material things, and informed them with law—a Spirit that is in itself the source of all life. There has been the further idea that this God is a person, who, though his mode of being is beyond human ken, recognizes the persons he has created, loves them, regards them as his family, and holds them personally responsible to his moral law. There has been the further idea that mankind, in consequence of their common parentage, are a band of brothers and sisters, who owe to one another good-will and unselfish service. There has been the further idea that this personal God is a being to be worshiped as the sum and source of all perfection—to be thanked, praised, prayed to, in the full recognition of filial relationship, and a full faith in his providential and paternal care. Out of this group of ideas has come the world’s best civilization. Out of it have come churches and schools, and colleges, and hospitals, and benign governments and missions, and a thousand institutions of brotherly benevolence. From it have sprung untold heroisms. It has recognized human rights. It has had no smaller aim than that of human perfection. It has armed millions of men and women with fortitude to bear the ills of life. It has made society safe wherever it has been dominant. Associated with a thousand dogmas invented by mistaken men, it has still done all that has been done to redeem the world to peace and goodness; and if this group of ideas has not scientifically demonstrated itself to be nearer the truth than are all the negations and speculations of scientific dreamers, then there is no such thing as science. —Dr. J. G. Holland; Scribner for April.