34 Summary 



6. Details apart, there is general agreement as to 

 the nebular origin of the solar system. If so, there 

 must have been more in the nebula than met the eye — 

 namely, the promise and potency of mind. We must 

 hold by the Aristotelian idea that there is nothing in 

 the end which was not also present in kind in the 

 beginning. Therefore we say: In the beginning was 

 mind. We cannot comprehend the relation of God to 

 His world, but it is difficult to think of the world 

 being launched in any such state of imperfection that 

 it required subsequent underpinning and subsidies. 

 Like Dame Nature in Kingsley's Water-Babies, God 

 made things make themselves. 



7. It should be possible to regain something of 

 the old wonder and reverence in the contemplation of 

 Nature without losing our scientific foothold. When 

 we consider the grandeur, the intricacy, the sim- 

 plicity, the flux, the order, the progressiveness of the 

 physical world, we find a basis for reasonable wonder. 

 "The undevout astronomer is mad." 



8. Three general facts are impressive : man's intel- 

 lectual masterfulness; the dependence of science on 

 the possibility of seeing the stars in heavens not con- 

 stantly overclouded ; and the way in which the Order 

 of Nature has admitted of advance from stage to 

 stage. It looks as if the Creation had been, as we 

 should say in human affairs, "well thought out." 



9. Modern investigation has shown the possibility 

 of an evolution of matter. The ninety-two elements 

 form an orderly series, differing from one another 

 quantitatively; namely, in the number and disposi- 



