78 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



ernance of natural things. By science, in the physical 

 world, miracles are wrought, while philosophy is for- 

 saking its ancient metaphysical channels, and pursuing 

 others which have been opened, or indicated by, scien- 

 tific research. This must become more and more 

 the case as philosophical writers become more 

 deeply imbued with the methods of science, better 

 acquainted with the facts which scientific men have 

 established, and with the great theories which they 

 have elaborated. 



If you look at the face of a watch, you see the hour 

 and minute hands, and possibly also a second-hand, 

 moving over the graduated dial. Why do these hands 

 move? and why are their relative motions such as they 

 are observed to be? These questions cannot be an- 

 swered without opening the watch, mastering its various 

 parts, and ascertaining their relationship to each other. 

 When this is done we find that the observed motion of 

 the hands follows of necessity from the inner mechan- 

 ism of the watch when acted upon by the force in- 

 vested in the spring. The motion of the hands may be 

 called a phenomenon of art, but the case is similar with 

 the phenomena of nature. These also have their in- 

 ner mechanism and their store of force to set that me- 

 chanism going. The ultimate problem of physical 

 science is to reveal this mechanism, to discern this 

 store, and to show that from the combined action of 

 both, the phenomena of which they constitute the 

 basis, must, of necessity, flow. 



I thought an attempt to give you even a brief and 

 sketchy illustration of the manner in which scientific 

 thinkers regard this problem, would not be uninterest- 

 ing to you on the present occasion; more especially as it 

 will give me occasion to say a word or two on the ten- 

 dencies and limits of modern science; to point out 



