The Wonder of the World 13 



800 separate parts. Here again there is room for 

 some rational wonder. 



Pervading Order. In spite of all this multiplicity 

 and intricacy, there is a pervading order. The 

 world is not a curiosity shop, but a Kosmos. 

 There do not seem to be many big collisions in the 

 crowded heavens, and there is no hint of fortuity. 

 The clockwork goes so steadily that the return of 

 a comet can be predicted to a night. There have 

 been cataclysms in the history of the Earth, but 

 they are not more disorderly than the cracking of 

 the sun-baked clay. There is order in the relations 

 of the atomic weights of the .chemical elements 

 (MendeleefFs "Periodic Law"), just as there is 

 order in the relations of the planets. The wind 

 bloweth where it listeth, and yet we know, as 

 Tyndall said, that " the Italian wind, gliding over 

 the crest of the Matterhorn, is as firmly ruled as 

 the earth in its orbital revolution round the sun; 

 and the fall of its vapour into clouds is exactly as 

 much a matter of necessity as the return of the 

 seasons." 1 Our body is a most intricate engine, 

 yet how smoothly it works if we give it a chance. 

 Creatures living naturally may have parasites, but 

 they hardly ever show any disease. That comes 

 when man tampers with them or with their sur- 

 roundings. Natural death is a most orderly phe- 

 nomenon. And even the disorders which man 

 1 "Fragments of Science." 



