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Infinite. Our scientific researches almost demonstrate the same, 
as they never seem to discover any limit to material things. The 
more we know, the wider and deeper appears the extent of the 
unknown. Our different instruments and apparatus for discovery 
disclose to us new things with every improvement. Thus it 
seems as if there were infinity in the material universe, and as if 
the only limitation were in our own perceptive powers, the 
possibilities of Nature being boundless, 
IV. In looking at the general results of the operation of 
natural laws, we see, not confusion and chaos, but a certain 
order and system, although those laws act as if blind, and not 
with any discrimination or faculty of combining. That this should 
be so,—that order and system should thus result from undis- 
cerning forces, points to the influence of some intention or 
purpose behind those forces and superior to them. 
V. Itis at or near the terrestrial surface, just where the 
atmosphere is in contact with the earth and sea, that organic life 
mainly exists and man can live. Here only, in this film of space 
enveloping the globe, have happered from remote ages, and still 
continue to happen, all the events and transactions of the human 
race --the famous deeds of history, and the common occurrences 
and doings of men throughout all time. Only here are these 
things possible. Here all the varieties of anjmal life, and all the 
plants and forests of the earth are found. Organic life is limited 
to this thin lower stratum of the atmosphere. Very little life 
exists above or below this line; and a certain distance al ove or 
below there appears to be none at all. Here alone the precise 
conditions are found which are needful for animal and vegetable 
life ; and the said life, including that of ourselves, depends on 
such delicate and nice adjustments that any alteration would 
destroy it. A slight change would make this earth uninhabitable ; 
yet the required conditions have been maintained, unchanged, for 
thousands of years. 
VI. Incontrast with the steady continuance of these nicely- 
balanced conditions, is that which we call perishable, but which is, 
really, changeable, in ourselves and in things around us. Yet 
even in the presence of these transient and fleeting forms, modern 
science has disclosed to us something in them which is imperish- 
able and indestructible, resembling immortality in the midst of 
mortality. For both Matter and Force are, so far as we know, in- 
destructible ; but the present forms in which they both appear 
are evanescent and always changing. We ourselves have some 
power of changing their forms ; but we cannot annihilate either 
matter or force. The impossibility of our destroying either, 
clearly implies a corresponding inability to create either. Both 
are out of our power. Yet, although to destroy any portion of 
