794 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



come when these royal and ultimate laws shall wreck the natural order of things 

 which seems so stable and so fair? Earthquakes were not things of remote an- 

 tiquity, as an island off Italy, the Eastern Archipelago, Greece, and Charleston 

 bore witness. ... In presence of a great earthquake men feel how powerless 

 they are, and their very knowledge adds to their weakness. The end of human 

 probation, the final dissolution of organized society, and the destruction of man's 

 home on the surface of the globe, were none of them violently contrary to our 

 present experience, but only the extension of present facts. The presentiment 

 of death was common; there were felt to be many things which threatened the 

 existence of society; and, as our globe was a ball of lire, at any moment the 

 pent-up forces which surge and boil beneath our feet might be poured out. — 

 Pall Mall Gazette, December 6, 1886. 



The preacher appears to entertain the notion that the occurrence 

 of a " catastrophe " * involves a hreach of the present order of Nature — 

 that it is an event incompatible with the physical laws which at pres- 

 ent obtain. lie seems to be of opinion that " scientific reason " lends 

 its authority to the imaginative supposition that physical law will 

 prevent the occurrence of the " catastrophes " anticipated by an unsci- 

 entific apostle. 



Scientific reason, like Homer, sometimes nods ; but I am not aware 

 that it has ever dreamed dreams of this sort. The fundamental axiom 

 of scientific thought is that there is not, never has been, and never 

 will be, any disorder in Nature. The admission of the occurrence of 

 any event which was not the logical consequence of the immediately 

 antecedent events, according to these definite ascertained, or unascer- 

 tained, rules which we call the "laws of Nature," would be an act of 

 self-destruction on the part of Science. 



" Catastrophe " is a relative conception. For ourselves it means an 

 event which brings about very terrible consequences to man, or im- 

 presses his mind by its magnitude relatively to him. But events which 

 are quite in the natural order of things to us, may be frightful catas- 

 trophes to other sentient beings. Surely no interruption of the order 

 of Nature is involved if, in the course of descending through an Alpine 

 pine-wood, I jump upon an ant-hill and in a moment wreck a whole 

 city and destroy a hundred thousand of its inhabitants. To the ants, 

 the catastrophe is worse than the earthquake of Lisbon. To me, it is 

 the natural and necessary consequence of the laws of matter in motion. 

 A redistribution of energy ha3 taken place, which is perfectly in ac- 

 cordance with natural order, however unpleasant its effects may be to 

 the ants. 



Imagination, inspired by scientific reason, and not merely assuming 

 the airs thereof, as it unfortunately too often does in the pulpit, so far 

 from having any right to repudiate catastrophes and deny the possi- 



* At any rate, a catastrophe greater than the Flood, which, as I observe with interest, 

 is as calmly assumed by the preacher to be an historical event as if Science had never had 

 a word to 6ay on that subject ! 



