PRESIDENT NEW COMB. 23 



know, it is not rash to assert that we know the true theory of 

 n,ature. even in the field of phenomena. This question may lead 

 us to look, a little more carefully than we have hitherto done upon 

 the exact standing of the doctrine of the uniform course of nature 

 according to antecedent causes, and the relation of this doctrine to 

 modern scientific investigation. And this leads me to say that it 

 would be entirely unphilosophieal to regard the revolution I have 

 described as a scientific discovery or induction. It may be doubted 

 whether the scientific mind is really any less disposed to believe in 

 final causes than the ordinary mind. Nor can the theory that the 

 course of nature is symbolized by the chain of cause and effect, as I 

 have descried it, be considered as a product of modern investiga- 

 tion simply, or as belonging especially to the present age. It is a 

 theory which has been, in a limited sphere, recognized by all men 

 at all times. The reason why modern science has so greatly ex- 

 tended its scope is, that modern science has acquired a vastly more 

 extended view of nature than has before been obtained. One of 

 the most curious and suggestive features of the teleological the- 

 ory has been that the action of teleological causes has always 

 been ascribed to operations into which human investigation could 

 not penetrate, although their ultimate effects might, be plainly 

 seen. Whenever the subject becomes so well understood that the 

 chain of natural causes can be clearly followed, miracles and final 

 causes cease, so far as the scientific explanation of things is con- 

 cerned. That a ball or spear thrown in one direction would bend 

 its course into an entirely different direction no one ever supposed. 

 Homer never imagined Pallas as changing the course of the jave* 

 lin after it had left the hand of Diomed. But those states of the 

 nervous system which result in a certain and accurate aim, or in a 

 tremulous or uncontrolled arm, lay beyond the pale of physiologi- 

 cal knowledge in the time of Homer, so here it was that the 

 goddess intervened. When nervous action became fully under- 

 stood, the final cause receded and took refuge in some deeper 

 arcanum of our ignorance. Jove was never expected to make 

 thunder and rain without clouds, nor was the falling of the rain 

 ever ascribed to his interference, because every one believed that 

 if the drops were once formed they would fall at once to the ground 

 without any action on his part. But the mixing currents of moist 

 and cool air, and the processes of condensation which lead to the 



