GOD AND NATURE. 39 



been evolved out of its primitive elements without the exercise of that 

 which, for want of a better word, I will call choice. Why should our 

 hearts be on the left side rather than on the right ? Why should we 

 have five digits rather than seven ? Why should we have one thumb 

 rather than two ? Why, to take a larger instance, should the planets 

 be exactly such as they are in size and in other conditions, which 

 apparently follow no law whatever ? Why should the exact quantity 

 of matter exist which does exist, for an infinite quantity is, I suppose, 

 inconceivable ? And what determines the precise pace at which all 

 the bodies which constitute the universe move ? To use the language 

 of a mathematician, what determines all the arbitrary constants and 

 arbitrary functions in the integrals of nature's equations ? This string 

 of questions might be lengthened indefinitely, but the reader will see 

 what the force of them is. If the principle of symmetry could be 

 asserted concerning the human body or concerning the solar system, 

 that symmetry might answer many questions ; it might be said, " This 

 or that is so, because there is no reason why it should be otherwise." 

 But there is an absence of symmetry from many parts of nature, and, 

 when no geometrical or other cause can be assigned, you need the 

 hypothesis of an independent will in order to render the irregular for- 

 mation in any degree intelligible. A supreme will throws light upon 

 the darkness ; it may leave some difficulties unsolved, but we feel that 

 in it we have got the key. 



But my pen has run as far as perhaps my readers will care to follow 

 me ; and I conclude, therefore, by reminding them of the thesis which 

 my essay has been intended to illustrate. It is the relation of God 

 and nature, and the connection between the study of the latter and 

 the knowledge of the former. I would say at the end what I said at 

 the beginning, that physical science is properly and necessarily athe- 

 ous, but not properly and not necessarily atheistic. Clerk Maxwell, 

 that great intellect, whom Cambridge and the world have recently lost, 

 was no atheist, but a devout believer in God ; yet no man had pene- 

 trated more deeply and more successfully into the arcana of matter, 

 and discussed more profoundly and more ingeniously the molecules of 

 which the universe is made. Is this wonderful ? I think not. It 

 seems to me that, while it is the duty of a scientific inquirer, as such, 

 to exclude from his inquiries anything that at all transcends the natu- 

 ral region, and therefore God can have no place in his inquiries, yet 

 the moral effect of the discipline of investigation ought to be, in the 

 case of a well-balanced mind, to compel it, if need be, to " cross the 

 boundary of experimental evidence" and recognize the existence of 

 Him " who hath created all things," in whom " we live, and move, and 

 have our being." Nineteenth Century. 



