THE MACHINERY OF NATURE 13 



are merely recording observations or express- 

 ing opinions, often very ill-founded. We are 

 not going to the real centre of things. We 

 are no doubt learning something of the 

 machinery of Nature and of the world, yet 

 in our hearts we know that if we leave out 

 God we have nothing left for the power that 

 guides, controls, and pervades that machinery. 

 Now and again we may be satisfied with 

 partial, and what are called natural explanations. 

 Far more frequently, however, we know that we 

 are not satisfied. We know, indeed, that God 

 is necessary to us, and that He must reign in 

 the world and in us before we can have any 

 sense of satisfaction in our existence. It has 

 often been said that intellectual conceit tends 

 to unbelief a conceit more characteristic even 

 of the age just passed than of the present 

 generation. In former years, with the sudden 

 opening out of our knowledge of natural 

 phenomena there has always been a tendency 

 on the part of those who studied Nature, and 

 who tried to wrest from her her hidden 

 treasures, to accept nothing that they could 



