APPENDIX A XLV 
purposes of common interest to an extent which is a striking feature of 
modern life. 
Likewise the teaching of abnegation of personal interest and of 
personal predilections for the sake of right thinking, and of the duty 
of looking at all sides of a question is of high value in self governing 
communities. The principle of the uniformity of the operation of 
natural laws, which is a generalization due to science, is indispensable 
to society, for without confidence in the certainty of results few of the 
great works of civilization that do not give an immediate return would 
have been undertaken. 
Ethical service to mankind of a very high order has been rendered 
to mankind by the declaration that law is supreme and universal; 
that causes always produce their appropriate effects, whether here and 
now, or however far away in space and time; that consequences cannot 
be evaded; that in the cosmos there is no place for chance. 
This position has been reached by gradual advance. In his first 
attempts to account for the phenomena of nature, primeval man was 
satisfied with the simplest analogies from his limited experience. The 
readiest explanation was that the phenomena were due to the action 
of beings like animals or men, as that an eclipse of the sun or moon 
was caused by a devouring monster, or that the sun was a fiery chariot 
driven by a superman. The apparently causeless variableness of 
various phenomena, like the wind and the weather, helped to instil 
this idea, by suggesting caprice, similar to human whim. Thus the 
forests, the mountains, the rivers and the sea became peopled with 
gods and demigods actuated by the passions and ficklenesses of men, 
each master of his own domain, and irresponsible except to others of 
his kind whose prerogatives he invaded. 
Doubtless the first step forward came from observing the regularity 
with which eclipses and other astronomical phenomena recur. This 
made it evident that caprice had nothing to do with the movements of 
the celestial bodies, and encouraged the attempt to find similar regu- 
larities in terrestrial phenomena. Progress has been slow, but continual. 
The ancient local deities were first replaced by local laws, that is by 
laws of separate and distinct sciences, each law ruling within its own 
sphere, and not susceptible of explanation as an outcome of a higher 
law, nor needing explanation. 
Lastly comes the conception that all the sciences are one, that all 
their laws are manifestations of one Power, by which the worlds were 
made and are sustained, and that all are joined in a harmony to which 
our minds may be attuned, and which by being attuned they may in a 
measure understand. 
