2 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. I. 



upon questions of origin and agency and purpose ; devoted, 

 in short, to physical philosophy. The problem of the true 

 relation subsisting between irrational and rational nature is 

 the problem of the day. An endeavour then will here be made 

 to elucidate what are the lessons taught us by a combined 

 study of nature in its two aspects, rational and irrational. 



It is probable that the last quarter of a century has, in 

 speculative England, seen a more quickly growing and more 

 our v agl f wide-spread crop of speculative questioning than 

 any former period of like duration. More than this, it is 

 doubtful whether any period of the world s past history has 

 witnessed a more general uncertainty, not only respecting the 

 solution of particular problems, but us to the possibility of 

 satisfactorily and certainly answering any one of them. 



Thus it has come about that from increased speculative 

 activity, and the inability of physical science to satisfy the 

 questions raised, men devoted to physical science have been 

 forced into philosophy. &quot;Metaphysics,&quot; which had become 

 (especially in this country) a byword of reproach, are again 

 avowedly pursued. A reaction has set in, and the importance 

 of philosophy, indeed its absolute necessity as a basis for 

 science, is made manifest by the most popular teachers of 

 physical knowledge. On the Continent, Buchner, Vogt, 

 Hartmann, and Strauss have powerfully aided in directing 

 popular attention to philosophical problems. In England, in 

 spite of the oft-repeated assertions of the unprogressiveness 

 of metaphysics, and the comparisons drawn between the 

 efforts of metaphysicians and those of Sisyphus, our book 

 shelves teem with evidence that devotion to philosophy is on 

 the increase amongst us, and physicists such as Carpenter, 

 Bence Jones, Bastian, Huxley, Tyndall, Darwin, Wallace, 

 with many more, have all, in various degrees, wandered 

 beyond the domain which is specially their own into the 

 metaphysical region. Even that annual national congress, 

 which was instituted expressly for the promotion of physical 

 science, had its session of 1872 inaugurated by an address on 

 &quot; the mental processes by which are formed those fundamental 



