236 LAW AGENCY AND DIVINE AGENCY. 



his observation extends, he discovers that grass grows, in all 

 cases, under certain given conditions, and hence grows accord- 

 ing to a fixed rule. He still, perhaps, believes that God, by a 

 direct and isolated fiat of His will, causes the rain to fall, the 

 thunder to peal, and the lightning to flash ; but a further de- 

 velopment of his mind corrects this impression, and shows 

 him that the rains, the thunders, and the lightnings, are de- 

 pendent upon a more general administration of the Divine 

 Power through atmospheric and electric media and conditions. 

 He still, perhaps, imagines that the sun, moon, and planets 

 are made to pursue their courses in the heavens by the direct 

 volitionary effort of God concentrated specifically and ab- 

 stractly upon them ; but when his mind is introduced to the 

 series of demonstrations presented in the science of Astrono- 

 my, he perceives that all these phenomena are in accordance 

 with a general method in which all aggregations of matter in 

 free space act. He still probably believes (according to a 

 common, and, as we have before shown, an erroneous inter- 

 pretation of Sacred Scripture) that the earth on which he 

 dwells was directly spoken into existence by God, in the space 

 of six .literal days, about six thousand years ago ; but w T hen 

 he attains a more enlarged understanding of the mechanical 

 and chemical forces which God has incorporated in the system 

 of nature, and reads the physical history of our planet as 

 written upon the .rocks, he perceives that our globe has been 

 brought from a primeval chaotic, to its present perfected state, 

 by means of fixed methods of operation of matter, expressed 

 by the terms, " condensation," " abrasion," " deposition," " se- 

 gregation," etc. And if the hypothesis (seemingly supported 

 by all analogy) that vegetable, animal, and even human or- 

 ganisms, came to exist through the instrumentality of equally 

 fixed and unvarying laws, is now met by storms of opposi- 



