constitution of our minds, they disclose to our faith a God who sees the end from the beginning, and who hath from the first instituted the plan to which all individual things and events have ever since been conformed. These objects so regularly constructed, and modes of procedure so systematic, fill the mind, and prepare us, if they do no more, to wait for the disclosure of a loving being who may fill the heart. For the intellect is not satisfied with contemplating, unless the heart be at the same time satisfied with loving. It is the grand mistake of not a few gifted men, in these latter ages when physical nature is so much studied, to imagine that the order and loveliness of the universe, its forces, its mechanism, its laws, its well-fitted proportions, will of themselves satisfy the soul. It will be found that all these, however fondly dwelt on, must, in the end, leave the same melancholy and disappointed feeling as the sight of a noble mansion doomed to remain for ever tenantless-unless they lead on to love, and such love as can only be felt towards a living and loving God.

* See article on Theistic Argument, in Appendix to Method of Divine Government, fourth edition.

CHAPTER II.

NATURE OF THE SPECIAL ADJUSTMENTS.

SECT. I.-NEED OF SPECIAL ADJUSTMENTS IN ORDER TO THE BENEFICENT OPERATION OF THE FORCES OF NATURE,

“ORDER is Heaven's first law," and the second is like unto it, that everything serves an end. This is the sum of all science. These are the two mites, even all that she hath, which she throws into the treasury of the Lord; and as she does so in faith, Eternal Wisdom looks on and commends the deed. As the separate physical sciences advance, they will necessitate the rise of combining sciences to collect their separate truths; and this they may best be able to do under the two heads of order and special end. The science which treats of a certain important department of the first of these has already a suitable name allotted to it, and is called Homology. But we need a word to embrace the whole, and we propose that this be Cosmology-that is, the Science of the Order in the Universe. We are aware that this term has been unfortunately devoted to an unattainable inquiry, which would penetrate into the origin of worlds; but this makes us the more anxious to rescue so excellent a phrase from so degraded a use, and give it a profitable application. The other general science has already an admirable name appropriated to it in Teleology, or the Science of Special Ends.

Physical science, at its present advanced stage, seems to be at one with the Word of God, in representing all nature as in a state of constant change, but with principles of order instituted in order to secure its stability. "ONE GENERATION PASSETH AWAY, AND ANOTHER GENE

RATION COMETH BUT THE EARTH ABIDETH FOR EVER.

THE SUN ALSO ARISETH, AND THE SUN GOETH DOWN, AND HASTETH TO HIS PLACE WHERE HE AROSE. THE WIND GOETH TOWARD THE SOUTH, AND TURNETH ABOUT UNTO THE NORTH; IT WHIRLETH ABOUT CONTINUALLY, AND THE WIND RETURNETH AGAIN ACCORDING TO HIS CIRCUITS. ALL THE RIVERS RUN INTO THE SEA: YET THE SEA IS NOT FULL; UNTO THE PLACE FROM WHENCE THE RIVERS COME, THITHER THEY RETURN AGAIN. ALL THINGS ARE FULL OF LABOUR; MAN CANNOT UTTER IT: THE EYE IS NOT SATISFIED WITH SEEING, NOR THE EAR FILLED WITH HEARING." There seems to be no such thing as absolute rest in nature. We are impressed with the fickleness of the winds and the restlessness of the waves; but the truth is, every other object is infected with the same love of change. There is probably no one body in precisely the same state in every respect for two successive instants. We think that we are stationary, but, in fact, we are being swept through space at a rate which it dizzies the imagination to contemplate. Every object in nature seems to have a work to do, and it lingers not, as it moves on, in the execution of its office. It exists in one state and in one place this instant, but it is changing meanwhile, and next instant it is found in another state or in another place. But there is an equilibrium established among these ever moving forces, and the processes of nature are made like the wind, to return according to their circuits.

So far as inductive science has been able to penetrate, it would appear that the active physical powers of the

universe consist of a number of forces, or rather, we should say, properties, each with its own tendency or rule of action, and yet all intimately connected the one with the other, that is, correlated. I wave my hand in the air, and in doing so, I set mechanical power a-working. "The motion," says Mr. Grove, "which has apparently ceased, is taken up by the air, from the air by the walls of the room, &c., and so, by direct and reacting waves, continually comminuted but never destroyed." The production of mechanical power may be more distinctly seen if the hand is employed to move a machine. Mechanical power, it is well known, generates heat, and this heat, according to Mr. Joule, is in proportion to the mechanical power exercised. Heat may lead to chemical action, as when bodies are decomposed by a rise in the temperature. Chemical action is always accompanied by electricity, and electricity may produce light or galvanism or magnetism. Galvanism, again, may have an effect on nervous or muscular action, and muscular action may produce mechanical power. Thus we have the various known (or rather, perhaps we should say, unknown) forces producing or exciting each other, according to laws which have not yet been fully determined. Nay, if we turn in upon the organism itself we shall find traces of a similar circuit. For whence the muscular action that originated the actions which we have mentioned? Tracing it inwards, we find it conducting us to the nerves and the brain. But the brain is not an inexhaustible, nor is it a self-filled fountain of physical power; on the contrary, if exercised in excess it becomes deranged in all its functions, or exhausted. In order to restoration of power, it needs, as every one knows, nightly rest, and also sustenance; and, on inquiring into the source of this suste

Grove's Correlation of Physical Forces, 2d edit., p. 17.

nance, we find that it is derived from without, from animals and plants. Again, animals are fed by other animals and by plants, and plants by unorganized matter. The circuits are thus made to include all physical powers, organic and inorganic. All these forces, distinct from each other, (so far as we know,) but intimately correlated, are made to balance each other, and to run in circles.*

We have introduced these generalized facts, which are independent of all speculations as to the nature of the physical forces, for the purpose of shewing that these natural powers are all blind in themselves, and require an arrangement to be made-and this arrangement must proceed from intelligence-in order to their beneficial action. Heat, light, electric action, chemical composition and decomposition, organic affection-these are among the most powerful instruments of good in our world, but they become the most potent means of inflicting evil. In their bearings towards animate objects capable of pleasure and pain, they may all be benignant, but they also spread misery and destruction. There is obvious need of a disposing mind to cause these various forces to act in harmony, and to issue in wise and benevolent results. "Elements," says Faraday, "the most seemingly unmanageable and discordant, are made to watch like ministering angels around us-each performing tranquilly its destined function, moving through all

* It is to be specially noticed, however, that there has been a power here exercised which is not thus dependent on the others. We refer to the mental power which willed the bodily action. The oldest definition of mind represents it as essentially a self-moving power. We must ever set ourselves against the idea maintained by some, that mental power is correlated to the physical and vital forces, as these are correlated to each other. We never can believe that the devotedness of the patriot, the self-sacrificing spirit of the martyr, or the heroism which resists bribe and temptation, are capable of being excited by heat, light, and magnetism, in the same way as these can be excited by each other. But still it is true that mind, we mean the human mind, can merely direct physical force: it cannot create or originate it, it can merely turn it this way or that; but the power exists prior to any mental effort being directed towards it, and when it is set a-working, by the needful conditions being supplied, it follows it own laws.