The Modern Aspect of Natural Theology.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 2, 1869, Page 281

The Modern Aspect of Natural Theology. By C. W. Richmond, One of the Judges of the Supreme Court of New Zealand. [Lecture delivered in Nelson, August 21, 1869.] Natural Theology is definable as that branch of Moral Science which investigates the indications in Nature of the Divine existence and attributes. Observe, I say, a branch of Moral Science; for to me it seems a great mistake to claim a place in Physics, or even an influence, for any department of Divinity. Physical Science and Theology alike suffer from confusion of their respective Provinces. In times not very distant, Theology, as we all know, attempted to dictate to the leaders of physical inquiry, most happily for us, without success. For if the ecclesiastics could have had their way, not only should we have lost the grand results of our present extended knowledge of the laws of Nature, but Divinity itself would, in all likelihood, have retained its narrow mediæval type; and mankind, subjected to that withering influence, would have sunk deeper and deeper in the slough of a childish and cruel superstition. About 250 years ago it was heretical to believe that the earth moves round the sun. At the same period the few who had sufficient courage and enlightenment to deny the reality of witches and sorcerers were branded as blasphemers. And, reverting to still earlier times, the Australasian colonist is amused to learn, that by the Christian Father Lactantius, the Antipodes were held to be impossible; by Saint Augustine, contrary to Scripture; by Saint Boniface, of Mentz, beyond the latitude of salvation. In the middle of the eighth century, Virgilius, an Irishman, rashly venturing to assert their existence, the whole religious world was thrown, says Mr. Lecky, into a paroxism of indignation. For, as Cosmas had well reasoned, does not Saint Paul expressly tell us, that all men are made to dwell upon “the face of the earth?” From which it clearly follows that they do not live upon more faces than one, or upon the back. With such a passage before his eyes, a Christian,

says Cosmas, should not “even speak of the Antipodes.” But why travel to remote ages and barbarous times for examples of these ludicrous attempts to control the course of scientific thought? We ourselves are witnesses that the same spirit has survived to our own days, and is yet active in the midst of us. We have seen, and still see, the conclusions of the Naturalist contested, not on the ground that they are unwarranted by observation, but because to the objector they seem to contradict some supposed Revelation on the subject contained in Scripture. Now I desire to assert on the threshold of our inquiry that, in regard to the constitution of the physical world, Theology must be content to sit at the feet of her younger sister Science. Scientific inference is to be supported and opposed purely on scientific grounds. But more especially in the department of Natural Theology it is obvious we must take our facts from Natural Science; making of them what we can. But, as physical science is progressive, the illustrations drawn from nature of the theistic arguments must needs adapt themselves to this advance, and theory after theory be shown to be consistent with what is fundamental in human faith. “I cannot therefore see that Dr. Hooker was justified in one charge which he made last year against this department of Theology. In his opening address, as President for the year, to the British Association, he makes it a reproach, that Natural Theology “shifts its ground to meet the requirements of every new fact, that science establishes.” Now in one sense, no doubt, it does, and ought, to “shift its ground.” Essentially it is occupied in showing that each new fact, and each successive theory, consists with, though it may not prove, the fundamental point of Natural Religion. Its assumption of scientific conclusion is of necessity, provisional only; for these conclusions, in their very nature, are never final. Science it is rightly said, knows nothing of Confessions, Creeds, and Articles. With her nothing is permanent, except the guiding principles of her research. At each step upward a wider prospect opens out upon her; and the theories of the past expand into more comprehensive views of truth. Theology is bound to follow with her comment this continuous advance. Plainly, there is confusion in Dr. Hooker's mind between Natural Theology and those ill-judged efforts, of which we have seen so many to reconcile the facts of Science with the letter of Scripture by perverting the interpretation of both the subjects of comparison. The earliest speculations upon the physical forces of the Universe seem to have arisen out of religious feeling—thereby understanding simply, the human sense of dependence on an irresistible external power. The might of the elements, contrasted with the sense of feebleness within, attracts an awe-struck worship; giving rise to those naturalistic systems of Religion which we find to have prevailed in the ancient civilized communities of Asia. In these systems every operation of nature is attributed to a supernatural influence. The elementary powers, and the more striking phenomena of the physical world, are impersonated and deified. In the earliest known form of the religion of India, fire, the winds, the sun, the dawn, the bright and cloudless firmament, are venerated as gods. But as there arises some conception of natural law, the notion of Divine interference becomes more and more restricted to the less frequent and apparently irregular phenomena; more especially to such as are of an appalling or destructive character. Pestilence, drought, earthquakes, hurricanes, are regarded as Divine visitations, long after men have ceased to worship the sun and stars. Eclipses, comets, and meteors, also, from their apparently irregular occurrence, and startling effect upon the senses, are placed in the same class, and taken for portents of the Divine anger. But in the progress of the adventurous European races, the bold and lively sons of Japhet have more and more asserted man's mental rights and bodily powers against external nature. Growing familiar with the regularity of all her ways, and

taught to turn to use some of her most tremendous agencies, the western nations, little by little, have ceased to yield her a divine regard. At last, nothing in nature excites a sacred awe but those unusual effects in which the hand of God is still, for the time, thought to be specially at work. Modern science has completed this great revolution of feeling and opinion. Certainly, at the present day, no educated person supposes the Divine influence to be more peculiarly manifested in an eclipse—of which he will find the time of occurrence, and area of visibility, predicted in his Almanac with perfect accuracy—than in the phases of the moon, or the regular recurrence of the seasons. If the periodical return of comets is as yet less exactly calculated, this is only, as we all understand, because the elements of the problem are more complex; and no one doubts that, sooner or later, our present comparative ignorance will be removed. The advance of Meteorology is gradually unfolding to us the laws obeyed by the seemingly capricious winds and clouds; enabling us to plot out beforehand the destructive path of the cyclone; making it impossible to regard seasons of excessive rain or drought as the chastisement of special sins. Plague, typhus, and cholera, may, indeed, be looked on as penalties affixed, by an immutable law, to filth and laziness; but in the mediæval sense, can no longer be taken as specially expressive of God's dissatisfaction with human deeds. And the laws of nature are found to be as universal in Space as invariable in Time. The order which reigns amongst the minute particles disclosed to us by the microscope, extends to the remotest regions accessible to the powers of those huge instruments which aid the research of the modern Astronomer. The same law that brings a feather to the ground, and wheels the planets in their orbits, governs, it seems, the vast revolutions of the multiple systems of stars; white, red, green, and blue suns, circling about their several common centres, at inconceivable distances, distances compared with which the whole diameter of the Earth's orbit is but as a point. Nor is the substance of the remotest bodies different, as it appears, from those forms of matter with which we are familiar. The latest experiments on the light emitted by what are called the fixed stars, are believed to give positive assurance that the chemical constituents of these bodies are in part, at least, identical with those of our own planet. Thus, while the Divine power seems everywhere replaced by Natural force, the scrutiny of Science leaves in the wide Universe no befitting seat of Deity. What has become of the conception of a local Heaven? What place have the astronomers left for it? Herschel has tried to gauge for us the visible Universe in vain; his plummet lowered into an ocean, every drop of which is a solar system, finds no bottom. The faint and hazy light, dimmed by immeasurable distance, of suns and systems, sown in countless multitudes on the dark background, still keeps dawning on the increasing powers of our space-penetrating instruments; and beyond these visible forms of matter, if indeed they have an end, there is nothing but a sense of vacuity more appalling still. Let any one, on a starry night, look steadfastly into the starless spaces of our antarctic heavens, and let him try to fancy God's unclouded presence as shining out beyond the verge of what is visible: he will feel that Heaven can no longer seem to us, as to the early world: we cannot say of it “Lo here! Lo here! that awful depth seems rather the abode of Eternal Night. In presence of considerations such as these, almost overwhelming as they may be found at times, even by the steadiest intellect and the most lively faith, is it surprising that, to very many, Matter and its Laws, seem all in all; or can we wonder, that the speculative mind, descending to the lowest level, sometimes finds at last a dull repose in the Dead Sea of Thought, the creed of the Materialistic atheist? This then, is the great cycle of opinion, we find the station of the bold and self-sufficient unbeliever of our days diametrically opposed to that of the submissive Asiatic—Nature,

in the old mode of thought, appearing all miraculous, wholly divine; but, in the modern view, just the reverse; quite unmiraculous and undivine. But not materialists alone hold the opinion, that where physical law is present, God is absent. A considerable section of the “religious world,” unconsciously adopts that proposition. And this explains the jealousy so frequently displayed, of all extensions of scientific knowledge. The so-called “explanations” of Science seem, from this point of view, to empty Nature of everything divine. The awful voice no longer sounds in the reverberations of the thunder: His dread judgements are no more announced in pestilence and famine: the earth no longer trembles at His look: it is not at His touch that the volcano vomits forth its smoke and lava-torrents. With these believers, as with the scientific Atheist, miracle stands as the opposite of natural law; the one divine, the other godless. With either party, to shut out miracle is to banish Deity itself. Hence the passionate opposition, renewed at every fresh attempt, made by contemporary science, at deeper penetration into the mysteries of Nature—passion arising from the unconscious notion that Faith itself depends on the continuance of scientific ignorance. The latest instance of this state of feeling is found in the attitude taken by many theologians towards Mr. Darwin's speculations on the Origin of Species in the Organic world. So long as Creation can be regarded as a unique act, hidden deep in the past from scientific scrutiny, it may retain the character of miracle. The new doctrine of development threatens this last stronghold. In the theological view the long train of organic nature, first herb and tree, then moving creature that the waters brought forth, winged fowl, creeping thing and beast of the earth, lastly man himself, emerge at the Divine fiat from nothingness; each differing from each, fixed in its type, perfect in its kind. On the other hand the school of Darwin is striving to refer this mystery to the operation of the known laws of Organic nature. Instead of detached creative acts manifesting the power and intelligence of the Supreme, they see quasi-mechanical evolution from some primitive germ—evolution proceeding as surely, whilst I speak, as at any former instant in the world's life. Those who have seized the principle, which in a former lecture I have endeavoured to expound and recommend, may view the controversy without taking either side, and with quiet certainty that the result must be indifferent to Natural Religion. Once perceive that Physical science can investigate only the method of the Universe, and except in concert with higher modes of thought, is incompetent to reveal its cause, and it will be plain, that Theism, at least, must stand secure in every change of scientific theory. Science, alone, does not, it must be granted, and cannot, reveal God; but far less can she provide a substitute. The whole question of causation lies beyond her sphere. This I repeat is, on all hands, an admitted principle. Bear with me whilst I endeavour to bring before you some proof of this assertion. And first as to the doctrine of the school of Hume on this important topic. “When,” writes the great master in that beautifully lucid style of his, “we look about us towards external objects, and consider the operation of causes, we are never able, in a single instance, to discover any power or necessary connection; any quality, which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible consequence of the other. We only find, that the one does actually, in fact, follow the other. The impulse of the one billiard-ball is attended with motion in the second. This is the whole that appears to the outward senses. The mind feels no sentiment or inward impression from this succession of objects: consequently there is not in any single particular instance of cause and effect anything which can suggest the idea of power or necessary connection. * *” “In reality,” he continues, “there is no part of matter that does ever, by its

sensible qualities, discover any power or energy, or give us ground to imagine that it could produce anything, or be followed by any other object which we could denominate its effect. * * * The scenes of the universe are continually shifting, and one object follows another in an uninterrupted succession; as the power, or force, which actuates the whole machine, is entirely concealed from us, and never discovers itself in any of the sensible qualities of body. We know that, in fact, heat is a constant attendant of flame; but what is the connection betwixt them we have no room so much as to conjecture or imagine. It is impossible, therefore, that the idea of power can be derived from the contemplation of bodies in single instances of their operation, because no bodies ever discover any power which can be the original of this idea.” With equal emphasis, John Stuart Mill declares, that scientific investigation is not concerned with the inquiry into the efficient cause of a phenomenon, “the cause which is not only followed by, but actually produces, the effect.” Some writers, thinking they are following Mill, are ready to assert that juxta-position of certain elements produces the galvanic current; or even, that like juxta-position produces mental action. Their master is more consistent in his Nescience. Strange as it may seem, with him, as with the great originator of this way of thinking, no one thing, within our knowledge, produces any other. Certain things invariably follow other things: Hume, Mill, Comte, pretend to know no more. The leaders entering the penetralia of Nature's temple, report they find a vacant seat, an empty shrine; (vacuam sedem, inania arcana); the weaker followers declare they see the idol of Material Necessity enthroned between the Cherubim. * With those disciples of Mill who, like a Reviewer of my former Lecture, “attribute nothing to matter as a cause,” I have, so far, no difference; except that it seems to me they are not justified in adopting such a formula as “that mental phenomena are the result of cerebral organisation.” without a distinct understanding that the word “result” carries with it no sense of necessary connection. This is their difficulty. For they themselves, in spite of their philosophy, like all mankind, cannot help letting the true idea of cause (disowned by Hume) glide in. Thus, unwittingly, and unwillingly, they are materialists. “Result” will continue, in spite of every philosophic caution to be taken as equivalent to, “effect.” “Effect” imports its correlative “cause.” If we wish to understand one another, we must banish words in which there lurks a casual signification, and keep to terms such as “consequent” and “concomitant.” My reviewer himself betrays the weakness I have pointed out, and forgets the doctrine of his school, when he talks of Nature “manipulating cerebral matter so as to produce mental phenomena.” What is this (to use his own language) but to make a supposed “metaphysical entire “Nature” “do duty as an efficient cause.” Nor is this in his mouth, a mere rhetorical expression, such as he himself lays hold of in his remarks on the passage cited by me from Martinæu's Sermons. It betrays the innter conception of Natural (or Material) Necessity, as the first cause of things. So in the poem of the great Latin Materialist, Natura, Venus, doedala tellus, are assumed as causes. Further on in the argument I am pursuing in the text, I come upon the fundamental difference between the two Philosophies. Hume, and his sect, in ignoring causation (except, as an eviscertated notion, in the sense of invariable sequence) contradict our consciousness of that moral freedom, and avow their nescience of God: thus sapping the intellectual basis of both Morals and Religion. By regarding Matter “merely as a condition of phenomena,” like Time and Space, this mode of thought escape the grossness of common Materilalism becoming intensely Idealistic; but the restriction of knowledge to phenomena leaves Man a phantam in the world of phantoms. In now turn to the teaching of the opposite school. This need not long detain us; for nothing is more certain than that thinkers of this class give not the slightest countenance to the fallacy that the so-called powers of Nature can, in themselves be causative. These metaphysicians, jealous as they are of the rights of common sense, and strong in their belief that every instructive assurance of our nature points at some reality, yet join with Hume and Mill to set aside that mistaken notion which I am combating. “Rude nations,” says Dr. Reid, “do really believe

sun, moon and stars, earth, sea and air, fountains and lakes, to have understanding and active power. * * * As philosophy advances, life and activity in natural objects retires, and leaves them dead and inactive. Instead of moving voluntarily, we find them to be moved necessarily; instead of acting, we find them to be acted upon; and Nature appears to us one great machine, where one wheel is turned by another, that by a third; and how far this necessary succession may reach the Philosopher does not know.” But it will be asked, are not the various Forces which Modern Science has detected, truly efficient causes; which the Theist, if he please, may style second causes, but which the scientific mind may rest upon as ultimate? Are not Gravitation, Elasticity, Cohesion, Attraction, Electricity, Magnetism, Caloric, Chemical Affinity, and the rest, causes in this sense? To these questions Hume and the Positivist school, with Mill and all his followers, will still answer with an avowal of ignorance. For their philosophy knows nothing but phenomena. Force, clearly, is no phenomenon, but the hidden producer of phenomena. And in this answer the opposite sect in metaphysics will most certainly concur. As Martineau shortly puts it, “Inductive Science gives us no access to causes behind phenomena.” Force is not matter, but the supposed power which acts on matter. In itself it is invisible, inaudible, impalpable, inaccessible, in short, to sense of any kind, or to any instruments of sense. Its intensity, indeed, as appearing in its various effects of motion, weight, elasticity, colour, heat, deflection of the needle, and so on, is, in most cases measurable by appropriate methods. But the power itself lies outside the field of observation; like that veiled Egyptian goddess, whose hands, stretched forth from her closely enwrapping mantle, alone were visible. “You sometimes speak of gravity,” Sir Isaac Newton writes to Bentley, “as essential and inherent to matter. Pray do not ascribe that notion to me; for the cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know.” Here we have the great discoverer avowing, that gravitation, according to his judgment, is not in itself a cause but the effect of some ulterior and undiscovered agency. If this be the case with gravity, it will scarcely be denied that the same is true of the entire catalogue of forces I have above rehearsed, together with actinic force, kinetic, and whatever other fresh coinage the always-active mind of scientific terminology may hereafter issue for temporary circulation. All are but names, I will not say to cover ignorance, although, in fact, they do conceal it, but to indicate the supposed common origin of phenomena which appear connected. This will be made still plainer if we observe two contrary tendencies of physical research. On the one hand, there is a tendency to augment the number of supposed material forces arising from the continual discovery of natural operations before unobserved. When such discovery occurs; as in the case of the action of light on certain salts of silver, (now become to us so familiar a fact in the arts of Photography;) the new class of effects is ascribed, for a time, to a new species of natural power. Thus Photography has taught us to speak of the “actinic” power of light. But on the other hand investigation is ever revealing to us the hidden analogies of Nature, and thus enabling us to collect phenomena in larger groups, which we then refer to some one form of force, instead of, as before, to several different forces. Here there is a tendency to reduce the length of the Dynamic catalogue. This consideration should satisfy us that the (so-called) physical agencies are plastic suppositions; hypotheses to serve a temporary purpose in scientific classification; not existences of which we have any real knowledge. Moreover the tendency of Modern Science is wholly to abandon the former notion of a multitude of Forces, and to refer all natural operations to a single form of Force. Force according to modern theory, never disappears in one shape without reappearing in another, with exactly corresponding intensity. The blow of the smith's

hammer is arrested by the anvil, and its force seems spent; but, in truth, it only changes shape, reappearing in the form of heat communicated to the anvil and the hammer. In the steam engine we see the reverse operation—Heat, in this instance, disappears in producing mechanical force. In like manner Heat will produce thermo-electric currents, whilst Electricity, in its turn, generates Heat. Electricity and Magnetism also, it is now known, are mutually convertible. Temporary magnets are made by electric currents, and sparks are elicited from magnets. Many other instances of like convertibility might be given. It is likely, then, that our conception of natural forces will, sooner or later, be reduced to some single type; and this one force will be conceived of as ever varying in its aspects; now Heat, now Chemical force, and now Mechanical; yet never spent. Here, then, it will perhaps be said, we shall have at last the material cause of which we are in search. I answer, No; you will have found matter in action; nothing more. The question will remain unanswered, “what makes it act?” The Theist may then leave Darwinians to fight it out with their opponents on the scientific field; secure that Natural Religion is nowise interested in the issue of the controversy. But is human faith, in any shape, truly in peril should it be established, as seems not unlikely, that Creation is no past event but a process ever going on? Grant to the advocate of progressive Development his “nucleated vesicle,” “primordial cell,” or whatever he likes to call it, out of which he is to bring the whole Organic world. Only do you and he remember, that the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms are in that cell, as truly as the oak is in the acorn. The cell accounts, he says, for the whole Organic world. Be it so: but the cell? what accounts for that? And, as we further see, the ground of the religious opposition is a misconception. The antithesis of miracle and natural law, as one divine, the other undivine, is, here, a false one; for the Power of God is no more at work in miracle than in Nature. Observe, I speak of the operation of Divine power, not of the manifestation of Divine purpose, which is not here in question. In almost every form of creed, the Divine character is supposed to be more fully expressed in miracle than in Nature. But of Divine power, surely, this amazing universe, filled and pulsating with self-renewing life in countless myriads of forms, is the greater physical expression: so that it is absurd to compare with it, in this respect, any recorded or imaginable deviation from established order. “Command that these stones be made bread,” was the word of the Tempter, as we read. The miracle, though then withheld, is worked, (on how huge a scale!) in each returning season, in our ripened crops. To fill a starving multitude from the scanty store of a poor fisher, what indeed, as a work of power is that to Him, “Who men and angels daily feeds, And stills the wailing sea-bird, on the hungry shore?” Scattered miracles of healing are small things to the repairing power of nature, or to that “stupendous alchemy” ever at work transmitting inorganic matter into living tissues. Nay, as a physical wonder, what is resuscitation of a single life, whilst in the birth of Human infants (to speak only of this Planet) the new creation of living souls takes place by thousands every hour? But to resume our former argument. Science can never touch the ground of Theism; for it knows nothing of efficient causes. The mind ranges in vain through nature for any original source of power. We find, as Reid puts it, wheel turned by wheel in endless succession, but never reach the origin of motion. For Matter (whatever it may be) we must needs conceive of as inert; that is its very definition; and of Force, in its essence, science must remain for ever ignorant.

It is beside my present purpose greatly to enlarge on the mental process by which the philosophic Theist supplies the blank thus left by science. Beyond the point we have now reached, the great contending sects of metaphysical thinkers have no common ground. I can no longer vouch the authority of the great Scottish sceptic and his followers, nor avoid collision with the Positivist sect. Yet I do not assent to the suggestion that the attempt to handle these great subjects, on intellectual grounds, yet, in a popular way, is an unwise one, merely because philosophers are not agreed about them. They are people's questions, for they concern the springs of human action in daily life, and must be settled by appeal to the broad experience of our common nature. There are some subjects on which men whose walk is in the beaten tracks of life—who have experienced the ordinary lot—acting, suffering, feeling, thinking, in the way of all mankind; may have a surer vision of the truth than is accorded to the calm and pure, yet frigid, formal, unimaginative intellect of the closeted Philosopher. Be it far from me to pass a moral judgment on these exceptional natures; or to conclude that their lives must be vicious and unholy, because I deem their principles unsound! Judging men by their actions, it will appear, plainly enough, that some have found a way to reconcile what seems a barren and repulsive creed of mere negations with a life of strenuous effort and noble aspiration. Such have become, and are an illustration to their country, and an honour to mankind. Let it be left to the great Taskmaster to judge His servants. To him they stand or fall. One word to some to whom the argument may be distasteful on another ground. Faith, I concede, has her experiments as well as Science; and they are happy, who by wholly other ways than those which we are trying, may have “felt after” and found Him who is “not far from every one of us.” To some such, I anticipate, discussion like the present may seem superfluous, or worse. The Supreme certainty will appear to them too true and real for elaborate proof, if not too sacred for metaphysical discussion. Yet let me urge, that all men are not in this happy case. The intellect has its demands; demands which, at the present time, it is unwise, unsafe, and wrong, to overlook. The reassuring faculty, “sounding on its dim and perilous way,” can never, I am well convince, beget assurance on this great subject; but it may remove impediments which are stumbling blocks to many; it may confirm conclusions based on surer ground; above all, it may rouse men from that mental torpor which is a disease far commoner than positive unbelief. Eschewing, so far as I am able, the refinements of metaphysical discussion, I shall, then, briefly state the grounds on which my own intellect arrives at its conclusion. I accept, as satisfactory, the doctrine that we derive the idea of “Force” from our own experience of the action of the “Will.” In volition, we have, I think, the sense of intellectual effort; of force put out, and resistance overcome; of strain kept up in spite of weariness. Having conceived a mental purpose we are conscious of putting forth a power whereby the thing conceived of may be effected. I speak here of purely mental experiences; and in this sphere, it seems to me, I say, that our wills appear to us to be efficient causes. * As regards our bodily motions, it may be granted to Hume, Brown, and J. S. Mill, that our will really causes them “in the same sense,” (to quote the last-named writer) “and in no other, in which cold causes ice, or a spark causes an explosion of gunpowder. The volition, a state of our mind, is the antecedent; [not cause;] the motion of our limbs, in conformity to the volition, is the consequent; [not effect.] This much, I say, may be granted as to the connection of the two events, viz., the volition and ensuing bodily movement. Our sense of power is in the volition itself apart from any physical result. “Force,” then, in our experience, is as Dr. Carpenter has put it, —“the direct expression, or manifestation, of that mental

state which we call Will.” It is the name we give to our own self-conscious exercise of power. We know, and can conceive of, no other form of Force. Constrained by a law of our nature, (that law which, uncorrected by our higher reason, suggests to us the notion of physical causation); to refer every phenomenon to a cause, we can do no otherwise than suppose, in the background of Nature, a power producing her appearances. This power we must needs conceive of as cognate with the only form of power of which we have experience. Thus it comes to pass, that the unsophisticated intellect must see in Nature the expression of a Mind; and suppose beneath the veil of fleeting phenomena the enduring force of a living Will. Force is but the metaphysical idea of Will transferred to the field of physics. Force is will supposed in action upon matter. The conception is the indispensable sub-stratum of all physical speculation; yet the origin of the idea, as of those of Substance, Space, and Time, is hyper-physical. I do not say that there is logical ground for the belief that all phenomena must bear the same kind of efficient cause with one type of Force which our narrow human experience makes known to us; or even for the belief that all phenomena must have a cause. These beliefs lie deeper than logic. They are laws of that mental constitution on which Logic itself depends. How mind can act on Matter must remain to us an impenetrable mystery. But, when called upon to choose between Mind and Matter for the origin and motive power of the universe, we can be at no loss; for Matter we must think of as inert; Mind, on the other hand, we are conscious of as active. When, however, we attempt to realize to ourselves the mode of the Divine action in the Universe of matter, we at once encounter a great difficulty of conception. Are we to suppose a distinct volition for every phenomenon; and to call in the Divine power to produce a spark, or form a rain-drop? We shrink from the idea as irreverent, if not impossible. On the other hand, suppose His volitions quarrel, and Himself, in Nature, regardless of particulars, and what becomes of that Providence without which not a sparrow falls, and by which the very hairs of our head are numbered? Nor can we escape the difficulty by the denial of God's immanency in Nature. It is idle to interpose between Him and His universe the machinery of secondary causes. We have seen the fallacy of imputing power to the temporary fictions of scientific generalization, as if gravitation, or electricity, were capable of being regarded as real agents. Driven from our refuge in the sophistry of so-called material causation, nothing is left but the world of spirit. In former ages there was no difficulty in the conception of intermedial agencies of a spiritual kind. In the Talmud a special angel is assigned to every star; and to every element. But the day for such fancies is gone by. In my judgement one difficulty is irremovable; for it arises from the natural limitation of our faculties. We view all things as existing in space or time. We know not that such is the mode of the Almighty's thought. Nay, rather, we believe that, to the great I AM, Past and Future are merged in an eternal Present: that to Him there is, physically, neither great nor small: neither far nor near: that, in the infinite sphere of His providence the centre is everywhere. But though our faith be that He reconciles the centre is everywhere. But though our faith be that He reconciles the claims of General and Particular in his boundless universe; and, whilst maintaining the grand and beautiful uniformities of Cosmical law, that His tender mercies are over all His works, we needs must own, that to comprehend, or even to imagine, how this can be, transcends our feeble faculties. The way is now open for us to consider more precisely the modern aspect of Physical Science, in its organic branches. This has appeared to many leading scientific minds highly unfavourable to those arguments from particular

Design, on what the theologians of the last century were wont to lay the greatest stress. As we have just seen, there are two ways in which the human mind strives to represent to itself the divine activity in the universe of matter. According to the one mode of thought, the general plan of Creation is paramount; according to the other, the particular creatures. Corresponding with this division is the difference between the past and present aspects of Organic science. The naturalist of last century separately examined each particular species of the Animal Kingdom, with reference to its external form, and mode of life. Great stress was laid in classification upon such characters, as the nature of food; whether it were a carnivorous, herbivorous, or insectivorous creature: or the habitat whether terrestrial, ærial, or aquatic; or the mode of progression, whether on hoofs, by wings, by fins or otherwise; in short, upon which it seemed fitted to attain. This method of classification is known as Teleological, or purposive, (from “telos” an end, a purpose) being based on the apparent purpose of an organism rather than on its structure, or course of development. But there are radical objections to this method of arrangement. “It is frequently found that two organs which are not unlike in external form, and which have corresponding functions in the system, originate from elements entirely different, and are therefore fundamentally dissimilar; while, and on the other hand, organs which at first sight present little or no resemblance to each other, and are applied to very different purposes in the economy, may be really modifications of the same fundamental component.” —Carp. § 4. The wings of Insects, as compared with those of Birds, are a good instance of the identity of function combined with fundamental diversity of structure. In structure the wings of Insects really are analogous, or, as the phrase now is, homologous, with certain structures, which in other articulated animals constitute part of the breathing apparatus. Hence Oken calls the wings of Insects “ærial gills.” The attempt to bring into comparison the wings of insects with those of birds and bats can now, as Carpenter observes, only excite a smile on the part of the philosophical anatomist. Again, the gills of fishes correspond in function with the lungs of air-breathing vertebrates. But, in structure, lungs are the homologues, not of the gills, but of the airbladder in Fishes; an organ which has no respiratory function. Modern classification no longer proceeds, therefore, upon analogy, that is resemblance of function, but upon homology, that is identity, of structural type. With the modern naturalist, the question is, not, what life the animal was meant to lead, but, what is the formal plan on which it is constructed? Proceeding thus, he finds, “that in the several tribes of organised beings, we have, not a mere aggregation on individuals, each formed upon an independent model, and presenting a type of structure peculiar to itself, but that we may trace throughout each assemblage, a conformity to a general plan which may be expressed in an ‘archetype,’ or ideal model. * Carpenter, “Comp. Physiol.,” § 11. * * * “The typical structure of any group being given, the different habits of its component species, or minor groups, are provided for, not by the creation of new organs, or the destruction of others, but by the modification in form, structure, or place, of organs typically belonging to the group. † Ibid. § 77, (cited Bell on “British Crustacea.”) This method in natural science is known as the Morphological (from “morphē”), “form;” because it regards community of form or type. The obvious defects in the arrangement of the mammalia, by the illustrious Cuvier, seems attributable to his partial adherence to the teleological method. His great primary division into Unguiculata (clawed), Ungulata (hoofed), and Mutilata (wanting the posterior

limbs) has reference rather to the adaptation of the creature to its external life than to the general plan of its structure. The division leads to a confusion which has become manifest in the light of the more advanced science of the present day. The whale tribe (Cetacea) with their high mammalian organisation, appear unduly degraded to the very bottom of Cuvier's table. merely because the wants of a purely marine habitat have been met by a development of the caudal extremity of the vertebral column, which supersedes the necessity for a development of the posterior limbs. On the other hand the Ornithorynchus (order Monotremata), whose structure presents marked analogies to the oviparous vertebrates, is elevated, merely in virtue of its clawed extremites, to a place above the Elephant and Horse. Yet, as Owen remarks, “no one has proposed to associate the unguiculate Bird or Lizard with the unguiculate Ape; and it is but a little less violation of natural affinities to associate the Monotrenes with the Quadrumanes in the same primary (unguieulate) division of the mammalian class.” Again Cuvier's secondary division according to the structure of the teeth is open to the same objection, and leads through, in a less degree, to the same inversion of Natural order, and confusion of Natural affinity. The possession by the Kangaroo of three kinds of teeth, elevated the genus, in Cuvier's list, to a place intermediate between the Carnivora and Rodentia, removing it from its true association with that other strange Australian already mentioned, the Ornithorynchus; which as wanting canine teeth and incisors, was ranked with South American types, the Armadillo, Sloth, and Ant-eater. The superiority of the more modern method, as a ground of classification, is best made evident in the case of the rudimentary organs. These would seem to the Teleologist but as “freaks of nature;” whilst to the eye of Morphology they are characters of the utmost significance. Thus Dr. Carpenter writes:—“We find, as might have been expected, * that if the plan of structure in a particular tribe involves the non-development of some organ which is possessed by neighbouring groups, its conformity to archetypal regularity is generally manifested by the presence of that organ in a rudimentary, or undeveloped condition. Thus, we find some rudiment of the lung in most Fishes, even where it is not sufficiently developed to serve as an “air-bladder” in regulating the specific gravity of the body. In the abdominal muscles of Mammals, again, we find the abdominal sternum and ribs of Saurian Reptiles indicated by white fibrous bands; and in those Mammals which do not possess a clavicle, that bone is usually represented by a ligament, just as the stylo-hyoid ligaments in Man represents a portion of the hyoidean arch which is elsewhere [i. e., in others of the Mammalia] completely ossified. Such rudimentary structures, however, often display themselves only at an early period of development, and are subsequently lost sight of. Thus the rudiments of teeth, which are never developed, and which, at a later period cannot be detected, are found in the embryo of the Whale, both in the upper and under jaws; and Professor Goodsir has assertained that the rudiments of canine teeth, and of the incisors of the upper jaw, which are not subsequently developed, exist in the embryos of Ruminating Mammals. The most remarkable example of the kind, however, is the existence of branchial arches, resembling those of the Fish, in the early embryo of all air-breathing Mammalia.” In the Vegetable kingdom the same conformity to a common type is manifested by the presence of rudimentary organs. In the common Sage, for example, “we find only two stamens where the general plan of the flower would lead us to expect five; but upon looking attentively at the interior of the corolla, two little scales are often to be seen growing in the place where two of the deficient stamens should have been; these two scales are frequently developed as perfect stamens in flowers which are otherwise constructed precisely like the sage; and even the fifth makes its appearance in

some instances, exactly where it should be regularly found.”—(Carp. ib.) In these and many like cases, parts which we are perhaps justified in saying are perfectly useless to the individual creature, seem to exist purely in conformity with the great law of the unity of Organic type. To the Natural Theologian following in the track of the older school of Naturalists, rudimentary organs were as great a stumbling block as to his leaders. The scarcely perceptible eyes of the mole may deserve the special praise accorded by Paley, in this instance, to Divine “skill;” but on his view of things, what can we make of that species in which the aborted organ is completely covered from the light? What, again, of the teeth of the foetal whale, or of the undeveloped air-bladder of some Fishes, or of the redundant provision of gills and lungs in some of the Batrachians, or of the caudal vertebræ in Man? A yet more serious difficulty beset the utilitarian Divine in this department of his work. “Adaptation” was a word as much in vogue with him as now is “Correlation” with the Darwinians. In Paley's pages one reads perpetually of the Divine “contrivances.” It is obvious to ask “Wherefore all this painful adaptation of means to ends?” Why should Omnipotence resort to contrivance to attain particular purposes? As Paley himself perceives “contrivance by its very definition and nature is the refuge of imperfection.” Besides, after all that can be said on the admirable structure of the Eye, and its adaptation to the light, the intervention of Almighty power still appears needful to enable us to see. How otherwise can the inverted image on the retina raise in the Mind a visual idea? How can any mechanism bridge over the chasm between the material image and the immaterial Mind? Then why should God devise complex machinery, which, after all, does not dispense with his direct volition? “What fitness,” it is well demanded, “is there in one mechanism more than in another, or in any than in none at all, to produce its appended perception?” Now in these, and kindred questions, Morphological Science comes in to relieve, though, it may be, not wholly to remove our difficulties. Discarding the mechanical idea, it calls on us to regard the Universe, not as a piece-meal product in which God, by a series of contrivances, has managed to adapt particular creations, one by one, to pre-established general laws, but as a mighty whole, whereof the parts are mutually related, and cohere in one all-comprehensive system. From this point of view, the eye seems adapted to the light, neither more nor less than the light to the eye. The great optical laws extending over tracts of time and space where vision cannot be, yet have relation to that wondrous little structure no less than it to them. The old idea of adaptation merges in the wider one of correlation; and all the forces of the Universe are seen to be cöoperant. Symmetry and Beauty, in and for themselves, appear to be creative ends which the Divine Artist has not thought fit to disregard; and we are at liberty to think that many things are as they are, not because He could not otherwise have reached some special purpose, but because he never violates that Order of thought, and Harmony of design, by which His mind expresses itself in Matter. Nor can we fail to see that one beneficial result, at least, in relation to God's intelligent creatures has been attained by this inflexible regard to order; for had he condescended to no method in His Universe, Science itself would have been impossible. The physical world have been an undecipherable Enigma, differing from the wonderful reality as does an incoherent scrawl from an intelligible writing. This wider view of Nature leaves unshaken in the older argument all that is really sound. The moral proof of beneficent design cannot be weakened by observing, that the fitness of every part for its peculiar function is attained without departure from the grander principle of Organic symmetry. The two ends are reached concurrently. I again cite from Dr. Carpenter the following passage:—

“We can scarcely select any example of diversity of external conformation and of function, superinduced upon an essential unity of organisation, so appropriate as that which is afforded by the comparison of those different modifications of the limbs or members, and especially of the anterior pair, by which the several species of Vertebrated animals are adapted to the most diversified modes of life. No Comparative Anatomist has the slightest hesitation in admitting that the pectoral fin of a Fish, the wing of a Bird, the paddle of a Dolphin, the fore-leg of a Deer, the wing of a Bat, and the arm of a Man, are the same organs; notwithstanding that their forms are so varied, the uses to which they are applied so unlike each other. For all these organs not only occupy the same position in the fabric, but are developed after the same manner; and when their osseous frame-work is examined, it is found to be composed of parts which are strictly comparable one with another, although varying in number and in relative proportion. “Thus, commencing from the shoulder-joint, we can almost everywhere [i. e., in the anterior limbs of all the creatures just named] recognize without difficulty the Humerus, it being only in Fishes that this is so little developed as not to intervene between the scapula and the bones of the fore-arm; next we have the radius and ulna, whose presence is always distinguishable, although one of them may be in only a rudimentary condition; then, beneath the wrist-joint, we find the bones of the carpus, which are normally ten in number, forming two rows, but which may be reduced by non-development to any smaller number—three, two, or even one; next we find the metacarpal bones, which are normally five, but are sometimes reduced among the higher Vertebrata to four, three, two, or one; while in Fishes they may be multiplied to the number of twenty or more; and lastly we have the digital bones, of which there are normally five sets, each consisting of three or more phalanges, but which are subject to the same reduction or multiplication as the metacarpal. It is entirely from the differences of conformation which these osseous elements gradually come to present in the course of their development, that those special adaptations arise, which fit their combination in each case for the wants of the particular species that possesses it; enabling it to be used as an instrument for terrestrial, aquatic, or ærial progression; for swimming and diving, for walking and running, for climbing and flying, for burrowing and tearing; or for that combination of refined and varied manifestations which renders the hand of Man capable of serving as an instrument wherewith to execute the conceptions of his fertile intellect.” As further illustrations, the proboscis of the Elephant, which constitutes so wonderful an instrument of prehension, is, properly, no special organ but an extended nose; and an approach to a like extension is presented by the Tapirs among existing Mammals, as well as by various extinct animals of the same order. “So, turning to the Vegetable Kingdom, we find that [apparently] special organs, such as tendrils, pitchers, fly-traps, etc., are evolved out of the more general type of the leaf, and are not introduced as additional to the ordinary fabric.” To me, I confess, it seems unsound and dangerous to rest the proof of design upon the existence of supposed anomalies introduced into the general plan for a special purpose. Sooner or later the supposed anomaly is sure to be explained away. It is well to take warning on this head from the mistakes of the last generation. To illustrate my meaning—Paley, in reference to the compensation of certain supposed deficiencies in the organisation of the Bat, writes thus:—“These inabilities are made up to her by the contrivance in her wing, and in placing a claw on that part the Creator has deviated from the analogy observed in winged animals. A singular defect required a singular substitute.” But, in Nature, we have learnt, by this time, nothing is singular. The Bat's supposed

“claw,” “the contrivance in her wing,” turns out, we see, to be a thumb! The supposed deviation from Universal order proves to be perfect uniformity. The narrow notion of quasi-miraculous adaptation disappears in the perception of the harmonious plan which answers every end at once. Yet, shall we say the view is false which sees in the provision for the dusky little creature a purpose as dear to God, as plain a revelation, as in that boundless plan of Nature which fills and masters the Imagination of Philosophers? Are these humble, beneficent utilities indeed beneath His scope? Surely there is a wiser way than this of looking at it. Just as, in some masterpiece of Literature, sense and sound, aiding each other, are alike complete and satisfying, and use and beauty, in perfection, are attained together; so is it in the Universe of things, though on a transcendent scale which beggars all comparison. None can say which is there supreme, Utility or Beauty; for both seem ends, and both seem perfectly achieved. They are, indeed, but different aspects of the same perfection. In the work of human art, one mind prefers to dwell on the harmony and grandeur of the language, another on the pregnant meaning of this or that particular verse or sentence. Both estimates, in their way, are just, and both inadequate. And thus it is with those diverse views of Nature which we have been considering. Some men are wholly taken up with admiration of the majestic uniformity of Natural law; others, taking a view at once humbler and higher, simpler and more devout, rather delight to trace the apparent purpose in some particular portion of God's works; but none can reach the meaning of the whole. Yet seeing, as we do, how He, in Nature, seems to combine harmoniously His general and particular purposes, are we not encouraged to believe, that in the higher region of His spiritual action, (however dark to us the method,) the like consistency obtains; and that the wide design which enchains Ages and Nations, and conducts the Education of the World, yet leaves room for special dealing, adapted to its wants, with the humblest human soul that turns towards him? To return once more to Physics; no one can fail to see, that in putting a new face on Science, the great resource has been the study of Development. Following this path, the modern Naturalist has solved a host of questions, having reference not merely to the nature of particular organs, but to the true relation between different groups of living beings. This fruitful method was first applied in Botany. In this department the gradual metamorphosis of all the organs from a common form is most distinctly traceable in the life of individual plants; and here, accordingly, was made the earliest application of the modern principle. Goethe showed that the various parts of plants are transformations of the axis and its appendages: the axis consisting, in its upward development, of the stem and branches; in its downward development of the root: the axial appendages, in their simple form, being leaves. All organs not parts of the axis itself, whether bracts, sepals, petals, stamens, or pistils, are now known to be modified leaves. The gradational passage from leaf to bract, from bract to sepal, from sepal to petal, from petal to stamen, is traceable in various plants. The same principle of research was soon extended to the Animal Kingdom. The metamorphosis of some creatures, Insects, for example, and Tadpoles, to the forms of maturity, takes place after birth. Amongst the higher animals each creature goes through its most striking transformations before it enters on a separate existence. Embryology, therefore, is the science which has thrown most light on Animal metamorphosis. It is the astonishing revelation of this department of enquiry that every organ of every animal is evolved from a common starting point—the simple cell—by a gradual passage from that primal integer of life to forms more special and complex. Pursuing the same line of thought and observation, in reference to the bony structure of

the Vertebrata, Oken and Owen have shown the development of the entire skeleton from the vertebral axis and its appendages; thus disclosing a series of phenomena parallel with those of the Vegetable world, and demonstrating the absolute unity in this respect of archetypal plan in the highest sub-division of the Animal Kingdom. Last of all, Darwin and his followers propose to elucidate the development of Species by the same procedure which has revealed the mysteries of individual growth. It is plain that in this attempt they are in entire accordance with the spirit and tendency of modern Science. If the Darwinians are in the right—and I know not why we should desire to see their theory refuted —not only the birth of idividuals, but the evolution of species is now proceeding as surely as at any former period; and we must henceforth speak of Creation in the present tense. It is matter of regret, though not of wonder, that the able and judicious author of so great a speculation should himself appear at times to misinterpret the theological bearing of his own ideas; writing as if his theory tended to supersede the notion of intelligent design. That this is a great error I trust I have made clear, and have succeeded in convincing you that such speculations do but open out upon us grander notions of the universal method. He whom we worship “worketh hitherto;” immanent in His universe, and active, now, as when the fiat first went forth “Let there be Light:”— “For was, and is, and will be, are but is; And all creation is one act at once The birth of light: but we that are not all, As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, And live, perforce, from thought to thought and make One act a phantom of succession:”— The theist, therefore, needs not fear to see these impressions of symmetry, which arise on contemplation of the laws of the Inorganic world, rapidly extending themselves to include Organic nature. The singular limitation of Paley's view, and that of his age, to special utilities and quasi-mechanical adjustments, caused him to underrate some of the sublimest testimony which Nature bears to her Maker's power and wisdom. In the stomach of a grub he could find the traces of a purpose which he vainly sought for in the solar system. To him the harmony of the spheres spoke of no musician, for of Order and Beauty as ends in themselves he was unable to conceive. Loving to view the Universe, not as a whole, but as made up of parts, “the glory of the sum of things” had never flashed upon him. For he looked on Nature with the mechanician's eye, not with the artist's; and unless he fancied he could guess an ulterior purpose her symmetry and beauty were almost wholly lost upon him. But once seize the conception that order, ratio, symmetry, beauty, do in themselves bespeak designing mind as clearly as utility itself, and Inorganic Nature will be seen to bear its testimony to the Creative Intellect as plainly as the Animated World. It would detain us too long were I to treat in detail this branch of the subject: I must content myself with a few words. The ideas of “Space,” “Time,” and “Number,” form the foundation of the pure sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic. The truths of these Sciences are abstract and necessary. They are abstract as having essentially no relation to the external world. No one ever consdered the line or circle, conceived of in the mathematics, as necessary, because, when understood, we perceive not only that they are true, but that they must be true. We can, by no effort, imagine that two and two make five; that two parallel straight lines when produced can meet; that the three angles of a triangle are, together, greater or less, than two right angels; neither can we conceive that these things ever were, or ever will be, here or elsewhere, otherwise than as we now conceive of them. These Sciences, then,

deal with abstract and necessary forms of Human thought. They disclose to us an infinity of ratios, or relations, subsisting between the various ideas of number and magnitude with which they deal; comprising the properties of geometrical figures, plane and solid, triangles, squares, circles, ellipses, prisms, cylinders, cones, spheres, etc. Now, on coming to the examination of external Nature, Man finds to his amazement that Nature “geometrizes” in all her departments. There is a definite apportionment of Space and Time, there are definite relations of Number and Magnitude, underlying, as it were, all Natural operations. The geometrical webs spun by man in his own brain, with ideal lines, turn out to be the ground-plans of Nature herself. The planets, to take a familiar instance, move round the sun in elliptical orbits, having the sun for a common focus. Their speed in different parts of their orbits is governed by a law capable of precise geometrical expression; for every planet moves in such a way that the line drawn from it to the sun sweeps over equal areas in equal times. An exact arithmetical relation subsists between the periods of revolution of the several planets and their respective distances from the Sun; the squares of the period being proportional to the cubes of the mean distances. Again Bode's law discloses a rather remarkable numerical harmony in the progression of the distances of the planets from the Sun. The general regularity of this series (a series in duple progression), was early observed: but the rule seemed to be broken in the case of the wide interval between Mars and Jupiter, where a member of the system seemed wanting. Bode argued that a planet must exist to fill up this gap; and towards the close of the last century there began a search for it. This has resulted in the discovery of a whole family of comparatively minute bodies, which may have been fragments of a larger one. Collectively, at all events, these planetoids fulfil the expectation of Science, for they revolve in orbits at a mean distance from the sun almost exactly corresponding with that indicated by Bode's law, as the proper distance of the missing member of the system.* Even more striking than these instances, is the fact, that the law of gravity itself may be regarded as the simple expression of an à priori truth dependent upon the abstract conception of Force, and on the geometrical relation subsisting between the superficial areas of spheres of different magnitudes. Suppose a force emanating from the centre of several concentric spheres, and diffusing itself through space. Taking it for an axiom, that Force is never lost, the supposed Force will become attenuated in proportion to the distance from the seat of power (the common centre), but will remain, in sum, undiminished. The sum of the force exerted on the surface of each sphere will then be the same. But these surfaces are in direct proportion to the squares of the radii of the spheres. The force, therefore, on any given part of any of these surfaces must, in its intensity, be in the inverse ratio of the radius—i. e., inversely as the distance. The undulations of light, heat, and sound, follow the same law. The first law of motion is also deducible, à priori, from the abstract idea of Force. Chemistry gives limits of the mathematical groundwork of Nature as distinct, almost, as those conveyed by the queenly science of Astronomy. The supposed primitive elements of bodies, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, and the rest, in whatever quantities they are mixed, combine with one another only in constant numerical proportions. When, as is commonly the case, one substance combines with another in several different proportions, the higher proportions are multiples of the lowest. This gives to the formulæ of Chemistry the very aspect of an algebraic series. Even the laws of musical concord depend upon the ratio subsisting between the numbers, in a given time, of the vibrations which produce the notes. In the simple chord of three notes, or harmonic triad, the Dominant performs four vibrations, whilst the Third performs five, and the Fifth six; and the superior, because more readily perceived, harmony of the combination is dependent upon the simplicity of this ratio. I believe there is little doubt that harmony of colour depends on a similar

mathematical proportion in the rates of vibration of the different rays. What then should be the inference from the mass of data I have so hastily thrown together? Surely this; there is a correspondence between the plan of Nature and the mind of Man, which plainly indicates their common origin: and more, their common origin in a Mind cognate with that of Man; which has impressed its image on our little mental world as on the mighty Universe around us. I do not say, indeed, that this is proved as against any who maintain the origin of things in blind material force; the pattern and impress of whose action would be identical in both its products, Man and Nature. But such considerations are, in their way, as forcible, by way of illustration, as Paley's argument, based on mere utility. Should Maphological Science at any time succeed in effacing the destinction between the organic and inorganic world, (no inconceivable result, when we remember that the phenomena of crystallization suggest an analogy between the two,) enlightened Faith will only find the very thing she was prepared for, and behind the study of form, chemistry begins to think of the ultimate revelation of a single substance of all created things. The modern doctrine, already glanced at, that all Force is of a single type, carries still further these notions of absolute cosmical unity; it being (as I have said) already ascertained that Heat, Electricity, Galvanism, Chemical affinity, and others of the physical Forces, can exchange effects with one another, and with Mechanical Force. No scientific mind, on which this doctrine of the unity and conservation of physical Force has taken hold, will ever part from it again. There is a growing conviction that Gravity, at one end of the scale, Vital Force at the other, will, in the end, appear reducible to a common form. Nature thus proving a very Proteus; and the varied forms of Force so many masks of a Dynamic Unity. Strange, after all, it is, that in this grand convergence of Scientific thought upon the one idea of perfect Unity, in form and substance, power and purpose, any man can fail to find increased assurance of that undying hope, that indestructible belief in,— “That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one hand, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves.”