160 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



notions and those of science, which proceeds on the 

 assumption of never-changing law and causality. ' But,' 

 he continues, with characteristic penetration, ' when the 

 great thought of one God, acting as a unit upon the 

 universe, has been seized, the connection of things in 

 accordance with the law of cause and effect is not only 

 thinkable, but it is a necessary consequence of the 

 assumption. For when I see ten thousand wheels in 

 motion, and know, or believe, that they are all driven by 

 one motive power, then I know that I have before me 

 a mechanism, the action of every part of which is 

 determined by the plan of the whole. So much being 

 assumed, it follows that I may investigate the structure 

 of that machine, and the various motions of its parts. 

 For the time being, therefore, this conception renders 

 scientific action free.' In other words, were a capricious 

 God at the circumference of every wheel and at the end 

 of every lever, the action of the machine would be in- 

 calculable by the methods of science. But the actions 

 of all its parts being rigidly determined by their con- 

 nections and relations, and these being brought into 

 play by a single motive power, then though this last 

 prime mover may elude me, I am still able to compre- 

 hend the machinery which it sets in motion. We have 

 here a conception of the relation of Nature to its Author, 

 which seems perfectly acceptable to some minds, but 

 perfectly intolerable to others. Newton and Boyle 

 lived and worked happily under the influence of this 

 conception ; Goethe rejected it with vehemence, and the 

 same repugnance to accepting it is manifest in Carlyle. 1 



1 Boyle's model of the universe was the Strasburg clock with an 

 outside Artificer. Goethe, on the other hand, sang 



' Ihm ziemt's die Welt im Innern zu bewegen, 

 Natur in sich, sich in Natur zu hegen.' 



See also Carlyle, Past and Present,' chap. v. 



