ON THE CULTIVATION OF SCIENCE. 649 



covery of truth, and according to the strict methods of inductive phi- 

 losophy. Much harm has been done by the antagonism which has 

 sometimes arisen between the expounders of science on the one hand, 

 and those of theology on the other, and we would deprecate the ten- 

 dency which exhibits itself in certain minds to foster feelings antago- 

 nistic to the researches into the phenomena of Nature, for fear they 

 should disprove the interpretations of Holy Writ made long before the 

 revelations of physical science, which might serve for a better exegesis 

 of what has been revealed ; and also the tendency in other minds to 

 transcend the known, and to pronounce dogmatically as to the possi- 

 bility of modes of existence on which physical research has not, and 

 we think never can throw, positive light. We freely admit that the 

 laws which relate to dead matter apply equally well to all living 

 organic bodies, but we are constrained at the same time to believe in 

 the existence of a mysterious something lying beyond this, working 

 through the laws of Nature as it were by immediate intelligence and 

 by p rearrangement, producing results marked in the future by evi- 

 dences of design. 



The analogy between crystallization and organization has never 

 impressed me as being well founded. If we allow the existence of 

 atoms endowed with the simple force of attraction in right lines, these 

 must, of mathematical necessity, group themselves in geometrical 

 figures three forming an equilateral plane triangle, four a solid 

 tetrahedron, and so on. But this i3 very different from the case of 

 atoms spontaneously grouping themselves in the form of eyes, ears, 

 and limbs, instruments of optics, of acoustics, and of locomotion, or 

 organs of thought and emotion. 



In all cases of transformation of organic matter, a definite amount 

 of potential energy is expended ; for example, in the incubation of an 

 egg, a considerable portion of the material within the shell runs down 

 irom an organic condition in combining with the oxygen of the atmos- 

 phere, into carbonic acid and water, and in this evolves the power or 

 energy necessary to build up the future animal out of the remaining 

 material. 



The work accomplished in this operation is at the expense of the 

 energy evolved by the chemical action ; that is, this energy instead 

 of evolving heat or other mechanical motions, when suffered to expend 

 itself without direction, is, in this case, employed in accomplishing 

 results of intellectual character, or, in other words, precisely such as 

 are produced when the energy of coal is employed by an intelligent 

 being in manufacturing articles intended for useful purposes. Again, 

 when we pass from the phenomena of life to those of mental and moral 

 emotions, we enter a region of still more absolute mystery, in which 

 our light becomes darkness, and we are obliged to bow in profound 

 humiliation, acknowledging that the highest flights of science can only 

 reach the threshold of the temple of faith. 



