Scientific Essays and Lectures by Charles Kingsley
page 91 of 160 (56%)
page 91 of 160 (56%)
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Understanding--by which He has established the heavens.
THOUGHTS IN A GRAVEL-PIT {262} Ladies and gentlemen, we may of course think of anything which we choose in a gravel-pit, as we may anywhere else. Thought is free: at least so we fancy. But the most right sort of thought, after all, is thought about what lies nearest us; not always, but surely once in a way, that we may understand something of everyday objects. And therefore it may be well worth our while to go once into a gravel-pit, and think about it, till we have learnt what a gravel-pit is. Learnt what a gravel-pit is? Everybody knows. If it be so, everybody knows more than I know. We all know a gravel-pit when we see one; but we do not all know what we see. I do not know. I know a little; a few scraps of fact about these pits round here, though about no others. Were I to go into a pit a hundred miles, even fifty miles off, I could tell you nothing certain about it; perhaps might make a dozen mistakes. But what I know, with tolerable certainty, about the pits round here, I wish to tell you to-night. But why? You do not need, one in ten of you, to know anything about |
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