Taking it in its wider and generic application, I understand

“Taking it in its wider and generic application, I understand faith to be the supplement of sense; or, to change the phrase, all knowledge which comes not to us through our senses we gain by faith in others.”
Thus spoke Matthew Simpson, a bishop, orator, and philosopher of the nineteenth century — a man who sought to bridge the chasm between faith and reason, between the seen and the unseen. In this profound declaration, he offers not the faith of blind belief, but the faith that undergirds all understanding — the trust that sustains human knowledge itself. He reminds us that though our senses reveal the world’s surface, it is faith that carries us beyond it, linking one soul to another, one generation to the next, one finite mind to the infinite truths of existence.

When Simpson speaks of faith as the supplement of sense, he unveils a truth both humble and majestic. The senses — sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell — are the gates through which the mind perceives reality. Yet, how narrow these gates are! The eye cannot see the wind, though it feels its motion; the ear cannot hear the roots growing beneath the soil. What lies beyond the senses must be reached by another faculty — the inner vision of faith. But Simpson’s wisdom reaches deeper still. He tells us that much of what we call “knowledge” — history, science, morality, love — rests upon the faith we place in others. The child believes the teacher, the patient trusts the healer, the student accepts the word of those who have gone before. Without faith, no generation could inherit the wisdom of its ancestors; without trust, no knowledge could endure.

This saying arose from an age of conflict between science and religion, when faith was often scorned as the enemy of reason. Yet Simpson, with clarity and grace, revealed that faith and knowledge are not foes, but partners. He taught that faith is not the opposite of reason, but its extension — its complement, its supplement. For the scientist, too, must believe — believe in the testimony of instruments, in the accuracy of numbers, in the honesty of peers. Every experiment begins with trust in the laws of nature, and every conclusion rests upon the unseen order that governs all things. Even the skeptic, who doubts all else, must have faith in his own reason to doubt at all. Thus, faith is the hidden root of all understanding, and those who reject it entirely cut the tree of knowledge at its base.

Consider the story of Galileo Galilei, who gazed through his telescope and beheld moons circling Jupiter — a vision that shattered centuries of assumption. His eyes saw the truth, but the world could not. The scholars of his age, bound by their senses to the familiar earth, refused to believe what they could not themselves perceive. Yet later generations, by faith in his observations and words, came to see what he had seen. Here lies Simpson’s wisdom made flesh: that even those who are not witnesses must rely upon the faithful testimony of others. Knowledge moves through the world like light through glass — from one to another, only clear when trust is unbroken.

Faith, then, is not merely a religious virtue; it is the fabric of human society. Every bridge we cross, every medicine we swallow, every book we read — all rest upon faith. We believe in the engineers who built the bridge, in the scientists who tested the medicine, in the authors who preserved the wisdom of ages. We cannot live without this sacred exchange of trust. And when faith is betrayed — when lies are sown in place of truth — the very foundation of knowledge trembles. Therefore, to live rightly is to be worthy of faith, both as giver and receiver. For knowledge without trust is chaos; but knowledge sustained by faith becomes civilization.

Simpson’s words also whisper of a higher faith — the faith that transcends even human testimony. There are truths that no sense can prove, yet the soul feels them with certainty: the beauty of goodness, the reality of love, the presence of the divine. These things cannot be measured, yet they move the heart more deeply than any physical law. Just as light travels through invisible waves, so do meaning and purpose reach us through faith, the unseen faculty that perceives what reason alone cannot grasp. To deny this inner sight is to live in half a world — a world of form without essence, of evidence without wonder.

Therefore, O seeker of wisdom, take this teaching as a lamp upon your path: trust rightly, and your knowledge will grow; believe wisely, and your faith will endure. Do not despise faith as weakness, nor idolize knowledge as power. Let them dwell together, as body and spirit, sense and soul. Believe in others when they speak with honesty and integrity, and strive to be one whose word can be believed in return. And beyond all human faith, hold fast to the unseen truth — that wisdom itself springs from both knowing and believing, from both seeing and trusting.

For as Matthew Simpson teaches, faith is the bridge between the visible and the invisible, the human and the divine. It supplements our senses and completes our knowledge. Without it, we are blind wanderers, each trapped within our own perception. But with it, we are one — learners in the great school of life, inheritors of the wisdom of ages, and pilgrims walking together toward truth, guided not only by what we see, but by what we dare to believe.