IMMENSITY AND COMPLEXITY OF NATURE. 29 



framed in accordance with intelligent design, nothing in 

 it is essentially inscrutable to intellectual powers, and 

 that the vast expanse of truth which remains unknown is 

 only temporarily inscrutable, until the prior knowledge 

 necessary to its discovery is obtained. And as ceaseless 

 activity is a necessary condition of human existence, we 

 may also conclude that new and improved intellectual 

 processes of research will be invented, and that the entire 

 universe of scientific truth will be investigated and dis- 

 covered. 



CHAPTEE IV. 



THE IMMENSITY AND COMPLEXITY OF NATURE. 



SIMPLICITY, whether truthful or not, is often attractive to 

 un philosophical minds, because it requires less intellectual 

 exertion. Men like to believe that the universe is framed 

 in accordance with their own simple and crude precon- 

 ceived ideas. As the human mind can think erroneously, 

 it is only to a limited extent a true mirror of external 

 nature. Realities often differ greatly from appearances, 

 apd the universe of matter is probably almost infinitely 

 greater and more complex than our common ideas of it. 

 The range of nature is inconceivably great. We cannot 

 even imagine bounds to duration or space, nor do we 

 know of limits to the amounts of matter or force, or to 

 the degree of complexity of physical or chemical actions, 

 except those already referred to (see Chapter II.). To 

 say that duration is finite is equivalent to saying there 

 was a period when time was not ; and to say that space is 

 not infinite is equal to affirming that there is a place 

 where space does not exist. Geological considerations and 



