xil] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 283 



mcna which arc the subject-matter of that science? 

 When Astronomy was young "the morning stars sang 

 together for joy," and the planets were guided in their 

 courses by celestial hands. Now, the harmony of the 

 stars has resolved itself into gravitation according to 

 the inverse squares of the distances, and the orbits of 

 the planets are deducible from the laws of the forces 

 which allow a schoolboy's stone to break a window. 

 The lightning was the angel of the Lord ; but it has 

 pleased Providence, in these modern times, that science 

 should make it the humble messenger of man, and we 

 know that every flash that shimmers about the horizon 

 on a summer's evening is determined by ascertainable 

 conditions, and that its direction and brightness might, 

 if our knowledge of these were great enough, have been 

 calculated. 



The solvency of great mercantile companies rests on 

 the validity of the laws which have been ascertained 

 to govern the seeming irregularity of that human life 

 which the moralist bewails as the most uncertain of 

 things ; plague, pestilence, and famine are admitted, by 

 all but fools, to be the natural result of causes for the 

 most part fully within human control, and not the 

 unavoidable tortures inflicted by wrathful Omnipotence 

 upon his helpless handiwork. 



Harmonious order governing eternally continuous 

 progress — the web and woof of matter and force inter- 

 weaving by slow degrees, without a broken thread, that 

 veil which lies between us and the Infinite — that 

 universe which alone we know or can know ; such is 

 the picture which science draws of the world, and in 

 proportion as any part of that picture is in unison with 

 the rest, so may we feel sure that it is rightly painted. 

 Shall Biology alone remain out of harmony with her 

 sister sciences ? 



