i 7 8 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



solid state to its place in nature. The same law, 

 varied in a vast number of ways in every distinct 

 substance, builds up crystals of all kinds of minerals 

 and crystalline rocks, and is connected with countless 

 adaptations of different kinds of matter to mechanical 

 and chemical uses in the arts. It is easy to see that 

 all this must have been otherwise, but for the institu 

 tion of many and complex laws. 



A lump of coal at first suggests little to excite 

 . interest or imagination ; but the student of its com- 

 position and microscopic structure finds that it is an 

 accumulation of vegetable matter representing the 

 j action of the solar light on the leaves of trees of the 

 Paleozoic age. It thus calls up images of these 

 perished forests, and of the causes concerned in their 

 production and growth, and in the accumulation and 

 preservation of their buried remains. It further 

 suggests the many ways in which this solar energy, 

 so^long sealed up, can be recalled to activity in heat, 

 gas light, steam, and electric light, and how remark 

 ably these things have been related to the wealth and 

 /the civilisation of modern nations. I may quote here 

 a graphic passage from a popular paper by Huxley, 

 which admirably draws the picture of provision for 

 man, but unfortunately leaves out the Provider :- 



Nature is never in a hurry, and seems to have had 

 always before her eyes the adage, Keep a thing long enough, 

 and you will find a use for it. She has kept her beds of 

 coal for millions of years without being able to find a use 



