VIS MEDICATRIX NATURE 637 



some device which dissolves rather than solves the problem. 

 It looks like a frontier-problem for Man's intellect. 



But, leaving this puzzle, do we not find some quiet for 

 our unrest in the progressive disclosure of the orderliness 

 of Nature? Ours is no phantasmagoria of a world, but a 

 Systema Naturae. We are parts of a reasonable world, which 

 voices reason and listens to reason. Its process has worked 

 persistently towards masterpieces, of which the climax is the 

 reasonable soul. From the intrinsic order and intelligibility 

 of Nature, which the rise of the magnificent scientific edifice 

 proves, we may not be logically permitted to make a tran- 

 scendent inference to an Omniscient Creator, but it is in that 

 way the heart of Man points. Our belief is that the Logos 

 is at the core of our system, implicit in the nebula, as no"w 

 in the dew-drop. It slept for the most part through the 

 evolution of plants and coral-like animals, whose dream- 

 smiles are a joy for ever. It slept as the child sleeps before 

 birth. It became more and more awake among higher ani- 

 mals, feeling and knowing and willing. It became articu- 

 late in self-conscious Man, and not least in his science. 



Scientific re-constructions are not arbitrary projections, 

 for they work. In this sense there is rationality in Nature. 

 But if there is rationality in Nature, must we not go fur- 

 ther ? For, as Aliotta has put it, " He who believes in 

 the objective value of his science must then also believe in 

 God. If an absolute thought does not exist, Nature cannot 

 be rational ". Descartes rested his belief in Science on his 

 belief in God. In his Gifford Lectures Mr. Arthur Balfour 

 rested the belief in God on a belief in science, for " God 

 is himself the condition of scientific knowledge ". 



To some it may seem far-fetched to find in Animate 

 Nature a correspondence to Man's truth-seeking. But we 



