304 THE FOUNDATIONS OF ZOOLOGY 



is evidence of an external sustaining power, physical science affords 

 this evidence; but no one who admits this can hope to escape 

 calumny; although it seems clear that the man of science is right, 

 and that theologians must some time admit he is right, and thank 

 him for standing by the truth in evil report and in good report; 

 for refusing to admit that he knows the laws of physical nature 

 in any way except as observed order. 



Stoutly and steadfastly has he refused to assert that he knows 

 any event must happen because some other event has happened. 

 He maintains that he knows nothing of causes as necessary ante- 

 cedents ; nothing of effects as necessary consequents. He has 

 never ceased from declaring his repudiation of Pindar's concep- 

 tion of natural law as the Ruler of the Mortals and the Immortals ; 

 or as the ruler of anything else, even the fall of a stone or a 

 sparrow to the ground. 



With all the emphasis he can command does he affirm that 

 they who charge him with belief that nature is governed by fixed 

 or necessary mechanical principles are totally ignorant of the 

 methods and accomplishments of science. 



If any still fail to understand him, the failure must be due to 

 the limitations of language, or to ignorance, or to natural incapacity ; 

 for he must bear in mind, with Aristotle, that reasoning does not 

 appeal to all, but only to those whose minds are prepared, as 

 ground is prepared for seed. 



The belief that the establishment of scientific conceptions of 

 nature shows that, after the first creative act, the Creator has 

 remained subject, like a human legislator, to his own laws, is based 

 upon utter misapprehension of science, and upon absurd and irra- 

 tional notions of natural law. 



All the student of physical science is able to discover in any 

 automaton, artificial or natural, as distinguished from instruments 

 and structures, is that its movements are orderly, and that confi- 

 dence in them is reasonable and judicious. This seems to be what 

 the word automaton means, and all it means; unless it means that 

 our confidence in the usefulness of automata, like our confidence, 

 in the usefulness of structures and instruments, is reasonable and 

 judicious. 



This thesis is the subject of the next section. 



