The unity of nature

Preface

S explained in the Preface to the first Edition of the "Reign of Law," published in 1866, I had intended to follow the chapter on Law in Politics with a concluding chapter on Law in Christian Theology. It was natural to reserve for that chapter all direct reference to some of the most fundamental facts of Human Nature. Yet, without such reference, the Reign of Law, especially in the Realm of Mind, could not even be approached in some of its very highest and most important aspects. At that time, however, I shrank from entering upon questions so profound, of such critical import, and so inseparably connected with religious controversy.

Further reflection has convinced me that the great subject of Law in Christian Theology is not only incapable of being treated in a single chapter, but cannot even be entered upon at all without previ

Preface.

paratory investigations and preparatory arguments which it would take volumes to exhaust. What has to be done, in the first place, is to establish some method of inquiry, and to find some secure avenue of approach. Before dealing with any part of the Theology which is peculiarly Christian, we must trace the connection between the Reign of Law and the ideas which are alike fundamental to all Religions, and inseparable from the facts of Nature. It is to this preliminary work that the following chapters have been devoted. Modern Doubt has called in question not only the whole subject of inquiry, -but the whole Faculties by which it can be pursued. Until these have been tested and examined by some standard which is elementary and acknowledged, we cannot even begin the work.

It has appeared to me that not a few of the problems which lie deepest in this inquiry, and which perplex us most, are soluble in the light of the Unity of Nature. Or if these problems are not entirely soluble in this light, at least they are broken up by it, and are reduced to fewer and simpler elements. The following chapters are an attempt to follow this conception along a few of the innumerable paths which it opens up, and which radiate from it through all the phenomena of the

Preface.

vii

Universe, as from an exhaustless centre of Energy and of Sueeestion.

It is the great advantage of these paths that they are almost infinite in number and equally various in direction. To those who walk in them nothing can ever come amiss. Every subject of interest, every object of wonder, every thought of mystery, every obscure analogy, every strange intimation of likeness in the midst of difference — the whole external and the whole internal world — is the province and the property of him who seeks to see and to understand the Unity of Nature. It is a thought which may be pursued in every calling — in the busiest hours of an active life, and in the calmest moments of rest and of reflection. And if, in the wanderings of our own spirit, and in the sins and sorrows of Human Life, there are terrible facts which resist all classification and all analysis, it will be a good result of our endeavours to comprehend the Unity of Nature, should it lead us better to see, and more definitely to understand, those features in the character of Man which constitute The Great Exception.

I commend these chapters to the consideration of those who care for such inquiries. Like the earlier Work, of which this is a sequel, much of it has appeared separately in other forms. These portions have all been reconsidered, and to some extent

VIII

Preface.

re-written ; whilst a new meaning has been given to the reasoning they contain by the place assigned to them in a connected Treatise. The chapters which were published last year as articles in the " Contemporary Review " called forth some criticisms from writers both in England and America from which I have derived advantage.

Inveraray, Dec. 1883.

ARGYLL, contents;

Chapter I. Pagb

General Definitions and Illustrations of the Unity

of Nature — What it is and what it is not . 1-45

The System of Nature — The Unity of God — Theism and Monotheism — Distinctions in Nature — The Work of Specialists — Selection and Generalisation in Science — Unity in the Universality of Gravitation — Mechanism of the Heavens — Light — Fact of an Universal Ether — Nature of the Universal Ether — Laws and Constitution of Light — Radiant Heat— The So- called Transmutation of Physical Forces — Magnetism — Chemical Affinity — Sound — Solar Light— The System of Adjustments — Distinction "between Light and Heat — Relations between Light and Heat — Chemical Effects of Light — The Unity of . Mind and Sentiment — Protoplasm and Life— Characteristics of Vitality — " Molecular Arrangement " — The Processes of Crystallisation — The Formation of Bone — The Work of "Differentiation"— The "Nucleated Cell "—Foundations of Organic Mechanism.

CHAPTER II. "Man's Place in the Unity of Nature . . . 46-80

The Composition of Man's Body — The Fundamental Facts of Organic Life — The Amoeba — The Primary Agent in Building the House of Life — Circulating Fluids of the Body — The Language of Sensation— The Science of Comparative Anatomy — The Doctrine of Homologies — Relationship of Man with Lower Animals through Organic Structure — Adaptation and Adjustment in Organic Life — Subordination of the Physical Forces — Sensation in the Animal Kingdom — The Doctrine of Idealism — The Exercises of Mind — Adjustments between Senses and their Objects — Unity of Senses with corresponding Appe« tites — Affinities of Sense-Impressions — Instinct of the Lower Animals —-Production of the Gall-fly — Mechanical Adjustment— Automata.

X

Chapter III. Pagb

Animal Instinct in its Relation to the Mind of

The Dipper or Water-Ousel — The Red-breasted Merganser or Dun- Diver — The Common Wild Duck — Mimicry by a Moth— Instinct the Foundation of Experience — Instinct dependent on Organic Apparatus — Instinct Congenital and Innate — Living Automata nonsense — Animals regarded as Machines — The Water-Ousel a Living Machine — Instinct an Inspiration involving Faith — Counterfeiting by Birds— Knowledge and Reason implicit in Instinct — Doctrine of Descartes — Reflex Nerve-Action — Consciousness and Sensation de- * pendent on Organic Structure — Man a Reasoning and Self-Conscious Machine — Mind in Man — Duality of Mental Operations — The "Two Voices" in Man — Adjusted Harmony between Instinct and Nature — Physical Structure and Freedom of the Will — A Consciousness of Freedom Warranted

CHAPTER IV. On the Limits of Human Knowledge . . .126-165

The Doubt of the Agnostic— The Philosophy of Nescience — Limitations of Mind and Spirit — Intensity of the Desire for Knowledge — A Reserve of Power — The Conceptions of Space and Time — Of Force and Matter — Conservation and Dissipation of Energy — The Concept of Causation— Antecedence, Uniform and Necessary — Correlation of Forces — The Law of Continuity — The Infinite a Conception of Science — Experience the Ground and Basis of Knowledge — The Mind of Man a Part of the System of the Universe — Intuitive Indexes of Higher Truths — The Immortal Service of Kant — Laws of Thought Laws of Nature — Relative Knowledge — Things in Themselves — The Perception of Relations — The Knowledge of Matter — Knowing a Thing "in Itself"— Our Knowledge of Light and Sound — Order of Precedence in Knowledge — The What, How, and Why of Human Inquiry— Faculties of the Human Mind — The Knowledge of the Related and the Real.

CHAPTER V. On the Truthfulness of Human Knowledge . 166-206

A Charge of Anthropomorphism— Man-Formism and Man-Soulism— Central Idea of the Charge— Reason and Knowledge— Anthropopsychism — Distinction recognised in Language between Man and

Contents.

Nature — The Phenomena of Mind not confined to Man — Physical Forces in Nature — Contrast of a Work of Human Art and a Work of Nature — Arrowheads and Fossil Teeth — A Work of Beaver Art — Points of Contact of Works of Nature and Works of Art — Animals commissioned Servants of Nature — Man the Creature and Child of the Natural System — Unity between Structure and Function — Outsidedness and Insidedness — Downwardness and Upwardness — Aspects ^ of Relationship of Mind to Matter — The Seemingly Automatic — Chains of Physical Causation — The Intelligibility of Nature — Purpose and Intelligence — Deceptions of a Spurious Anthropomorphism — Mind Pre-supposed in Structure of the Brain — Constructive Agency outside the Apparatus — Abstract Conceptions in Interpretations of Nature.

Chapter VI. 1/

On the Elementary Constitution of Matter in Relation to the Inorganic ..... 207-241

The Materialistic Philosophy of the Ancients — Atomism, Ancient and Modern — The Phenomena of Weight — The Force of Gravitation — Crudity of Old Materialism— The " Molecular Constitution " — Germ Development — The Atom of Modern Chemical Science— "Valency " of Atoms — Chemical Combinations — Affinity of Atoms — The Automatic Forces of Nature— Chemistry an Instrument of Purpose — Mysterious Forces and Laws of Chemical Affinity — Inorganic Combinations seemingly Accidental but really Systematic— Affinities of Oxygen— The Composition and Properties of Water — The Fulness of Life in the Ocean — Marine Organisms — Relations between the Organic and Inorganic — Chemistry and the Metals — Fundamental Principle underlying Chemical Affinity — Subordination of Physical Causation.

CHAPTER VII. The Elementary Constitution of Matter in Relation

to the Organic . . . . . 242-273

Organic Chemistry — Structure of the Living "Cell" — The Chemistry of the " Proteids " or "Hydro-Carbons" — "Building up" of Organic Compounds— Triumphs of the Laboratory— Structure of Crystals — " Molecular Arrangements " — The " Interlocking of Atoms " — Chemical Combination essentially Dynamic— Inorganic Structures merely Chemical— Difference and Segregation in Organic Chemistry — Vegetable and Animal Tissues — The Unit of Organic Structure — The Corpuscles of the Blood— Circulation of the Blood— Mysterious Processes of Crystallisation and of Organic Structure — The Science of Biology — xii

Contents.

The Foresights of Nature — A Doctrine of Comparative Anatomy — The Metamorphoses of Insects — The Principle of Development— Predetermination of Lines of Variation — Germinal Structures — The Development of Germs — Creation and Evolution — Complementary- Notions.

CHAPTER VIII. Manas the Representative of the Supernatural 274-315

The Supernatural — Professor Tyndall's Elimination of the Supernatural — Propositions Denying the Supernatural — Man a Product of Evolution — Fundamental Inconsistency in Agnostic Philosophy — The Phrase, " Nature abhors a Vacuum " — True and Legitimate Anthropopsychism — Central Conception of Development Theory — The <k Circumnutation " of Plants — Turgescence of Cell-growth in Plants — Versatility of Plant-Life — The Correlation of Natural Forces — Anthropopsychic Language of Mr. Darwin and Professor Tyndall — Development Theory founded on Teleology — Objection of Agassiz to Theory of Natural Selection — The Wealth of Mind in Nature — The Use of MetaphoricalLanguage — Nature essentially Anthropopsychic — Herbert Spencer's Definition of Life — Life an Adjustment — Matthew Arnold's Phrase for the Conception of a Divine Being — Tyndall's Test of Physical Truth — The Processes of " Differentiation " — Misuse of the Terms " Reflex Action " and " Potential Existence " — Classification of Scientific Phraseology — Matter and Mind — Mind in Man the Type of Mind in Nature — The Universe a System of Order and Beauty— Mind and Heart combined alone Adorable- -Relations of Man to God — The Human Mind a Faint Image of the Divine — Uawonhiness of our Moral Character.

CHAPTER IX. Ok the Moral Character of Man . . . 316-373

The Consciousness of Unworthiness— Impulse and Power — Man's Sense of Ignorance— Significance of the Reserve of Power— The Law of Man's Being— The Sense of Moral Obligation — The Association of Ideas— The Moral Sense Elementary in Character— The Analysis of Mind and of Matter— Conscience— The Faculty of Memory— The Faculties of Will and of Reflection— Mental Faculties not Independent—Subject-matter of Moral Sense— Freedom in Human Action — The Supreme Authority — The Moral Sense in Deeds of Cruelty — Central Question of ail Ethical Inquiry— Place and Rank of Intuition or Instinct — Mental Operations originate from Rudimentary Truths — The Moral Sense necessary to Human Development— The Acquisition of Knowledge — Common Element of all Moral Judgment — The

Contents.

xiii

PAGB

Antagonistic Schools of Ethical Philosophy — The Golden Rule and Utilitarianism— Elementary Signification of Utility — Fallacy in the Use of the Word Utility— The Chief End of Man— Utility a Test of Fitness— Utilitarianism practically Useless — Authority, not Utility, our Guide— The Golden Rule not the only Moral Intuition — Obedience Man's First Conception of Duty— All Nature Instinct with the Spirit of Authority— Man Responsive to an Imperial Code — Place of Instinct in Unity of Nature— Seeming Anomaly in Human Development — Mind in Creation and Mind in the Creature — The Absolutely Singular in Man — Tendencies to Progress and to Retrogression — Human Perversions — Checks to Population — Anomaly in the Conduct of Savages — An Element of Confusion in the Universal Order— The Corruption of Human Nature— Inveterate Moral Perversities in Man.

The Sense of Obligation an Elementary Conception of the Mind — The Feelings of Obligation — Moral Anomalies require Explanation — The Theory of Primordial Savagery — The Work of Evolution — What is- Meant by Civilisation — The Idea of Civilisation and that of Virtue — Essential Characteristics of Civilisation — The Terms " Barbarian" and "Savage" — Barbarism and Savagery not Primeval — Marriage in Primeval Times — The Development of Good and Evil — Natural Rejection the Correlative of Natural Selection — Savagery and Civilisation both Products of Evolution — Deteriorating Effects of External Conditions—Origin and Distribution of the Human Race — An Ancient and Sublime Cosmogony — Scripture and Science relative to Origin of Man — The Doctrine of Chances— The Dispersion of the Human Race — The Configuration of the Earth— The Teaching of Geology — Land-masses older than Man— The Natives of Tierra del Fuego — Man on the Shores of Baffin's Bay — The Eskimo Immigrants from the South — Man on the African Continent — The Aborigines of Australasia — The Fauna of Australasia — Man not Indigenous in Australasia, but a Degenerate Offshoot of the Race — Incentives to Immigration — Remote Dispersions Accounted for — Degradation due to External Circumstances — Man in Tropical America— Condition of the Lowest Races of Man — Degradation by Development in a Wrong Direction — The Indigenous Civilisation of America — A Significant Red Indian Myth — Hochelaga — Degradation a Result of War — Reason itself a Cause of Degradation — The Gift of Reason — The Lines on which Reason moves — Nature of the Reasoning Faculty — Downward Developments of Reason — Self-Rectifying Power of Reason in Physics — Reason in Religion — Aberrant Developments of Reason in Morals — The Free- Will of Man in Virtue and in Vice — Deviation in Man from the Order of Nature.

CHAPTER X. On the Degradation of Man

. 374-447

• xiv Contents.

CHAPTER XL

PAGE

On the Nature and Origin of Religion .. . 448-482

Correlation of Appetites with certain Facts and Laws — Inquiry into the Origin of Religion — Assumptions involved in Current Theories — Schleiermacher's Definition of Religion— The Sense of Dependence — Tiele's Definition of Religion — Belief in a Personal Deity— Divorce of Religion and Worship anomalous— The Denial of God by some not a complete Denial — Belief in Order and Law a Belief in Personality—Knowledge identified with Religion — Comte's System of Religion — Supernatural Belief a Personal Belief — Ambiguity of the Phrase, " The Infinite "—"The Invisible," another Abstract Phrase- Necessity for a clear Definition of Religion — The Religion of Primeval Man— The Mosaic Identification of Origin of Religion and Origin of Man — The Fundamental Belief in all Religions— Personal Element of Will and of Purpose — Personality in the Agencies and Energies of Nature — The Origin of Reason — Of Imagination — Of Wonder — The Desire of Knowledge leads to Religious Faith — The Origin of all Theologies — The Self-Consciousness of Man connected with Religious Emotion and Belief — The Conception of Form and Locality — No Race of Men without Conceptions of a Religious Nature — Tendency to Deify Material Objects — Degenerate Developments, of Forms — Difference between the Theology of the Church and Popular Superstitions.

CHAPTER XII. On the Corruptions of Religion . . . 483-519

Four Stages in the History of Religion — Fetishism — The Theology often Superior to the Worship — Superstitious Worship of African Tribes — Tyranny of Savage Religious Customs — Processes of Degradation in Religion— The "Customs" of Dahomey — The Religion of Ancient Egypt— The Origin of Animal Worship — Possible Explanation of the Worship of Animals— The Scarabeus Beetle — Degradation of Animal- Worship— Serpent-Worship — Comte's Worship of Humanity — Liable to Degradation — The Chosen Heroes of Humanity— Religious Systems uniformly subject to Degradation — Christianity alone possesses Power of Revival and Reform — The Corruption of Mahometanism — The Character of Mahomet — Source of Declension of Mahometanism — Buddhism originally a Reform of Brahminism — The Teaching of Sakya Muni (Buddha) — The Doctrine of Transmigration of Souls — The Extravagances of Buddhism accounted for — Buddhistic Atheism —The Origin of Brahminism— The Heaven-Father — The True Idea of the Godhead in Christianity — Negative Definition of the Godhead by the Reformers of the English Church— J. H. Newman's Definition

Contents.

xv

— Doubtful Superiority of Modern Ideas of God — Deifications of Nature in Vedic Literature — Religious Conceptions of the Aryan Race — Personifications of the Forces or Powers of Nature — Monotheism and Polytheism — The Central Idea of Brahminism — Evidence of Language regarding Conceptions of Personality — Personifications of the Earliest Aryans— The " Book of the Dead "—The Ancient Egyptian Idea of God.

CHAPTER XIII. Recapitulations and Conclusions . . . 520-553

Doubtful Chronology of the Oldest Vedic Literature — The first Inventions of Man the most Wonderful — The Beginnings of Human Speech — Thought and Language — Inconceivability of a First Man as a Savage — Power of Conception no Measure of Possibility — The Assumption of a Fatherless Childhood — Inconceivability of a First Man as a Beast — Universal Tendency of the Human Mind to Belief in Divinity— Religion Unaccountable on the Hypothesis of No-God — Highest Type of Virtue founded on Religious Faith — The Enemies of Religion — Relation between Religious Conceptions and Highest Conditions of Human Life — Fundamental Postulates of ail Religion — The Sense of Obedience — Truthfulness of the Senses — Authority of Structural Adjustment — The Principle of the Human Mechanism — The Senses of the Mind — The Spirit of Interpretation— Pre-established Harmonies certain — Difference between Moral and Intellectual Nature of Man- Man's first Consciousness of God — Happy Conditions of Man's first Formation — The Elements bom in Man for Apprehending God — Idolatry and Fetishism Corruptions of early Conceptions of Spiritual Religion — Dante's Claim of Instinct in Man — Human Corruption Scientifically Defined — Moral Corruption and the Law of Hereditary Transmission — Man's Moral Character the one great Anomaly in . Nature — Agnosticism Ignores everything Kindred to Moral and Intellectual Structure — The Pretended Solvent of all Knowledge and of all Belief.

553-571

THE

UNITY OF NATURE.

General Definitions and Illustrations of the Unity of Nature — what it is and what it

IS NOT.

HP HE System of Nature in which we live impresses itself cn the mind as one System. It is under this impression that we speak of it as the Universe. It was under the same impression, but with a conception specially vivid of its order and its beauty, that the Greeks called it the Kosmos. By such words as these, we mean that Nature is one Whole — a Whole of which all the parts are inseparably united — joined together by the most curious and intimate relations, which it is the highest work of Observation to trace, and of Reason to understand.

I do not suppose that there is any need of proving this — of proving, I mean, that this is the general impression which Nature makes upon us. It may be well, however, to trace this impression to its

Chapter I. A

The Unity of Nature.

source — to see how far it is founded on definite facts., and how far it is strengthened bv such new discoveries as science has lately added to the knowledge of Mankind.

One thino; is certain : that whatever science mav have done., or may be doing, to confirm Man's idea of the Unity of Nature, science, in the modern acceptation of the term, did not give rise to it. The idea had arisen long before science in this sense was born. That is to say, the idea existed before the acquisition of physical knowledge had been raised to the dignity of a pursuit, and before the methods and the results of that pursuit had been reduced to system. Theology, no doubt, had more to do with it. The idea of the Unity of Nature must be at least as old as the idea of one God : and even those who believe in the derivation of Man from the Savage and the Brute, cannot tell us how soon the Monotheistic doctrine arose. The Jewish literature and traditions, which are at least among the oldest in the world, exhibit this doctrine in the purest form, and represent it as the doctrine of primeval times. The earliest indications of religious thought among" the Arvan races pomt in the same direction. The records of that mysterious civilisation which had been established on the Nile at a date long anterior to the Call of Abraham, are more and more clearly yielding results in harmony with the tradition of the Jews.

And the Unity of God.

The Polytheism of Egypt is being traced and tracked through the many and the easy paths which lead to the fashioning of many Gods out of the attributes of One.*

Probably those who do not accept this conclusion as historically proved may hold rather that the idea of the Unity of Nature preceded the idea of the Unity of God. and that Monotheism is but the form in which that earlier idea became embodied. It matters not, so far as my present purpose is concerned, which of these two has been the real order of events. If the law prevailing in the infancy of our race has been at all like the law prevailing in the infancy of the individual, then Man's first Beliefs were derived from Authority, and not from either reasoning or observation. I do not mvself believe that in the morning of the world Theism arose as the result of philosophical speculation, or as the result of Imagination personifying- some abstract idea of the Unity of external Nature. But if this were possible, then it would follow that while a perception of the Unity of Nature must be at least as old as the idea of one Creator, it may be a good deal older. Whether the two ideas were ever actually separated in history, it is certain that they can be, and are separated at the present time. A sense and a perception of the Unity of Nature — strong, imaginative, and almost

* Renouf, " Hibbert Lectures."'' 1S79. p. 89.

T/ie Unity of Nature.

mystic in its character — is now prevalent among* men over whom the idea of the personal agency of a living God has, to say the least, a much weaker hold. V What, then, is this Unity of Nature ? Is it a fact or an imagination ? Is it a reality or a dream ? Is it a mere poetic fancy incapable of definition ; or is it a conception firmly and legitimately founded on the phenomena of the world ?

But there is another question which comes before these. What do we mean by unity ? In what sense can we say that an infinite number and variety of things are nevertheless one ? This is an important question, because it is very possible to look for the Unity of Nature in such a manner that, instead of extending our knowledge, or rendering it more clear and definite, we may rather narrow it, and render it more confused. It has been said that all knowledge consists in the perception of difference. This is not accurate : but it is true that the perception of difference is the necessary foundation of all knowledge. For if it be possible to give any short definition of that in which essentially all knowledge consists, perhaps the nearest approach to such a definition would be this : that knowledge is the perception of relations. To know a thing and to understand it, is to know it in its relation to other things. But the first step in this knowledge is to know it as distinguished from other things. The perception of

Distinctions in Nature not to be Confounded. 5

mere difference comes before the perception of all other and higher relations.

It is well, therefore, to remember that no increase of knowledge can be acquired by a wilful confounding or a careless forgetfulness of distinctions. We may choose to call two things one, because we choose to look at them in one aspect only, and to disregard them in other aspects quite as obvious, and perhaps much more important. And thus we may create a unity which is purely artificial, or which represents nothing but a comparatively insignificant incident in the System of Nature. For as things may be related to each other in an infinite variety of ways — in form, or in size, or in substance, or in position, or in modes of origin, or in laws of growth, or in work and function — so there are an infinite number and variety of aspects in which unity can be traced. And these aspects rise in an ascending series according to the completeness of our knowledge of things, and according to the development of those intellectual faculties by which alone the higher relations between them can be perceived. For the perception of every relation, even that of mere physical continuity, is purely the work of Mind, and this work can only be performed in proportion to the materials which are supplied, and to the power of interpretation which is enjoyed. It is very easy to rest satisfied with the perception of the commoner and more obvious relations of things to each other, and even to be so engrossed with these as to be rendered altogether incapable of perceiving the finer and less palpable relations which constitute the higher aspects of the Unity of Nature. New relations, too, which are by no means obvious, but on the contrary can only be discovered by laborious analysis, may from the mere effect of novelty, engross attention far beyond their real importance. Nay, more — it may be said, with truth, that this is a danger which, for a time at least, increases with the progress of science, because it must obviously beset special subjects of inquiry and special methods of research. The division of labour necessarily becomes more and more minute with the complication of the work which is to be done, and branches out into a thousand channels of inquiry, each of which finds its natural termination in the ascertainment of some one special series of relations. The Chemist is engaged with the elementary combinations of matter, and finds a unity of composition among things which in all other aspects are totally diverse. The Anatomist is concerned with structure, and separates widely between things which may nevertheless be identical in chemical composition. The Physiologist is concerned with function ; and,, finding the same offices performed by a vast variety of structures, ranges them across all their differences under a single name. The Comparative Anatomist;

Danger of forming Inadequate Conceptions. 7 is concerned with the relative place or position of the parts in Organic structures ; and, although he finds the same part in different creatures performing widely different functions, he nevertheless pronounces them to be the same, and to be one in the homologies of an ideal archetype. But each of these inquirers may be satisfied with the particular unity which his own investigations lead him specially to observe, and mav be blind altogether to the unity which is next above it.

Nor is it specialists alone who are in danger of forming narrow and inadequate conceptions of the Unity of Nature. Minds whose tendency it is to generalise are even more exposed to this danger than minds whose passion it is to investigate and arrange a particular class of facts. The work of generalisation is essentially a work of selection — the selection and separation of that which is essential from that which is comparatively unimportant, in the great connecting lines of Nature. If in this work the principle of selection be a wrong one — if it be founded on a narrow conception and a very partial understanding of the facts — if the great lines, are not seen to be what they really are, and if little divergent lines are followed in their stead — then the most ambitious generalisations of science maybe far more deceiving than the most despised of vulgar errors. For indeed these errors are sometimes errors only in their form, whilst in substance

The Unity of Nature.

they are often full of spirit and of truth. In them, not seldom, the popular eye has caught and reflected the masses of the forest, which the man of science has been prevented from seeing by the trees. And so it may well be that the sense of unity in Nature, which Man has had from very early times, reflected in such words as the " Universe/' and in his belief in one God, is a higher and fuller perception of the truth than is commonly attained either by those who are engrossed in the laborious investigation of details, or by those who struggle to compress all the wealth of Nature within some abstract formula of the laboratory or of the workshop. This is one of the many cases in which the Intuitions of the Mind have preceded inquiry, and gone in advance of science, leaving nothing for systematic investigation to do, except to confirm, by formal proofs, that which has been already long felt and known.