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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



ceeds to criticise the views of the questioner, on 

 the ground of their narrowness, and to inform 

 him that the Creator can (and, by implication, 

 that he does) so arrange tbings that any result 

 he may wish shall be brought about by the ac- 

 tion of natural laws themselves. " We do not 

 expect Etna to recall her fires when a sage is 

 near; or the air and ocean to acquire new mo- 

 tions, to preserve a saint from danger. . . . 

 Should these individuals not be rushing reckless- 

 ly against the known laws of Heaven, or should 

 it be the will of God to preserve them, it will be 

 found that provision has been made for their 

 escape, and that, not through the powers of Na- 

 ture disobeying their own laws, but through oth- 

 er powers in Nature opportunely interposing to 

 stop, to turn aside, or otherwise to modify, their 

 operation." 



Now, always supposing that such remarks as 

 these are intended to apply to the domain of sight, 

 hearing, and understanding, they differ fundament- 

 ally from the scientific theory in their view of 

 what constitutes the laws of Nature. The school 

 seems to look upon causes and effects in Nature 

 as belonging to two different classes of things. 

 They see an immense collection of causes, to 

 each of which the appropriate effect is tied. So 

 long as the cause is followed by its effect, the 

 laws of Nature are satisfied. So, if the Ruler 

 wants to rew r ard, punish, kill, or rescue, he has 

 only to bring into operation the appropriate cause 

 at the proper moment. The natural effect fol- 

 lows, and his will is executed without any viola- 

 tion of the laws of Nature. I am not sure that 

 this is an exact statement of the views to which 

 I refer ; but it is the best I can gather from 

 the study of the forms in which they have found 

 expression. 



Supposing this to be the view really enter- 

 tained, it is essentially different from that held by 

 the scientific philosophy. The course of Nature, 

 as it presents itself to the eye of Science, is not 

 a collection of isolated .causes, each with its ef- 

 fect attached to it ; but it is rather to be symbol- 

 ized by a chain, in which each link is connected 

 with the link which precedes it and with the one 

 which follows it. At each moment of time the 

 state of the universe is the effect of the state which 

 immediately preceded it, and the cause of the 

 state which immediately follows. There are no 

 such filings as distinct causes and effects ; but 

 only laws of progress, which connect the succes- 

 sive links of the seemingly endless chain. 



As an illustration of this, let us take the fall- 

 ing of the rock. To the mere observer there is 



no evident reason why it should fall at one time 

 rather than another. He may, therefore, feel 

 that there is room for speculation as to the cause 

 which made it fall at the exact moment it did. 

 But science teaches that it will fall at the very 

 moment when the cohesive attraction which binds 

 it to the mountain behind becomes less than the 

 weight of the rock. We might suppose a power 

 to so adjust the causes which effect the cohesion 

 that the rock shall fall at some desired moment ; 

 but any such adjustment would be as complete a 

 subversion of natural law as if the power should 

 hold the rock up after it had begun to fall. The 

 natural processes by which the cohesion of the 

 rock is slowly diminished, though mostly hidden 

 from our view, are governed by laws as precise in 

 their action as those which regulate the motion of 

 the planets. The water which falls from the clouds 

 slowly percolates through the ground and enters 

 a crack in the supporting mass. It wears it away 

 at a rate dependent on the solubility of the mate- 

 rial and the quantity of water which falls. A 

 constant but certain molecular action goes on 

 without ceasing between each molecule of water 

 and each molecule of rock. The strength of the 

 latter is thus weakened, according to some law 

 admitting of precise mathematical statement. 

 Thus, a mind possessed of sufficient mathematical 

 ability, knowing how much water runs over the 

 rock from time to time, and knowing also the 

 laws of molecular action between the rock and 

 the water, could determine long in advance the 

 very moment at which the rock would fall. 



Going back another step, we see that the 

 quantity of water which runs over the rock de- 

 pends on antecedent circumstances in the same 

 way — namely, upon the quantity of the rainfall 

 and the arrangement of the crevices in the 

 ground. However the latter may have been pro- 

 duced, the cause is still another link in the end- 

 less chain which we can trace back to preceding 

 links as far as we please. Equally is the rainfall 

 a fixed element, determined by the course of the 

 winds and the amount of moisture which they 

 carry. Thus we have a network of causes too 

 complicated for the human mind to trace in de- 

 tail, but which the philosophy of science teaches 

 us act with mathematical certainty. No temper- 

 ing, modifying, or adjusting action comes in at 

 any stage of the process, so far as we can see. 

 If we admit such action, we have to keep placing 

 it further back as our knowledge increases. 



Now, there is one feature of these causes, the 

 admission or rejection of which constitutes the 

 main point of difference between the two schools 



