s
now known to be true. A whirling torch makes a circle of fire appear
before the eye, yet we realize there is but one point of light. We behold
a shadow moving upon the ground but it has no material existence, no
substance. In deserts the atmospheric effects are particularly productive
of illusions which deceive the eye. Once I saw a mirage in which a whole
caravan appeared traveling upward into the sky. In the far north other
deceptive phenomena appear and baffle human vision. Sometimes three or
four suns called by scientists "mock suns" will be shining at the same
time whereas we know the great solar orb is one and that it remains fixed
and single. In brief, the senses are continually deceived and we are
unable to separate that which is reality from that which is not.

As to the second criterion--reason--this likewise is unreliable and not to
be depended upon. This human world is an ocean of varying opinions. If
reason is the perfect standard and criterion of knowledge, why are
opinions at variance and why do philosophers disagree so completely with
each other? This is a clear proof that human reason is not to be relied
upon as an infallible criterion. For instance, great discoveries and
announcements of former centuries are continually upset and discarded by
the wise men of today. Mathematicians, astronomers, chemical scientists
continually disprove and reject the conclusions of the ancients; nothing
is fixed, nothing final; everything continually changing because human
reason is progressing along new roads of investigation and arriving at new
conclusions every day. In the future much that is announced and accepted
as true now will be rejected and disproved. And so it will continue ad
infinitum.

When we consider the third criterion--traditions--upheld by theologians as
the avenue and standard of knowledge, we find this source equally
unreliable and unworthy of dependence. For religious traditions are the
report and record of understanding and interpretation of the Book. By what
means has this understanding, this interpretation been reached? By the
analysis of human reason. When we read the Book of God the faculty of
comprehension by which we form conclusions is reason. Reason is mind. If
we are not endowed with perfect reason, how can we comprehend the meanings
of the Word of God? Therefore human reason, as already pointed out, is by
its very nature finite and faulty in conclusions. It cannot surround the
Reality