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The Existence Of God–Parable Of The Blind Kittens
by
“Don’t mention it,” said the kind Man. “Go down cellar and help yourselves to mice.”
That’s the end of the parable. We are all blind kittens, and our few attempts at explaining nature’s wonders and kindness only get us into deeper and deeper mysteries.
We discover that the earth goes round the sun. But the greatest scientist must admit his inability to tell or guess why it goes. “Give me the initial impulse,” he says, “and all the rest is easy.”
The blind kittens in their wagon say: “Give our wagon just one shove and we’ll explain the rest.”
The kitten gets hold of a law of “milk-passing” and substitutes that for man’s individual kindness.
The feeble-minded agnostic seizes the law of gravitation and thinks he can discard God with gravity’s help.
But the great mind that defined gravity’s law was a religious mind–too profound to see anything final in its own feeble power.
Newton was no atheist. None better than he knew the mysterious character of his law. That it has worked from all eternity “directly as the mass and inversely as the square of the distance” he knew and told his fellow-creatures. That is all he knew and all that any man knows about it.
To-day Lord Kelvin, a worthy follower in Newton’s steps, is asked to explain WHY gravity acts. He can only say:
“I accept no theory of gravitation. Present science has no right to attempt to explain gravitation. We know nothing about it. We simply know NOTHING about it.”
Darwin asks, without answering his question:
“Who can explain what is the essence of the attraction of gravitation?” —-
To our doubting friends we say: Doubt if you must. But doubt intelligently and doubt first of all your own blind kitten wisdom. Remember that you at least know absolutely nothing. Study and think. Read. But don’t let the half-developed wisdom of others choke up your brain and leave you a mere clogged-up doubting machine.
Whatever you do, never interfere with the faith of others. Spread KNOWLEDGE, spread FACTS. Keep to yourself the doubts that would disturb others’ happiness and do them no good. Tell what you KNOW. Keep quiet about what you GUESS.