MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES 33 



instead of being, as it is, a fortress of adamant, would 

 be a house of clay, ill-fitted to bear the buifetings of the 

 theologic storms to which it is periodically exposed. 



Thus we see that Newton, like Torricelli, first pon- 

 dered his facts, illuminated them with persistent thought, 

 and finally divined the character of the force of grav- 

 itation. But, having thus travelled inward to the 

 principle, he reversed his steps, carried the principle 

 outward, and justified it by demonstrating its fitness 

 to external nature. 



And here, in passing, I would notice a point which 

 is well worthy of attention. Kepler had deduced his 

 laws from observation. As far back as those observa- 

 tions extended, the planetary motions had obeyed these 

 laws; and neither Kepler nor Newton entertained a doubt 

 as to their continuing to obey them. Year after year, as 

 the ages rolled, they believed that those laws would con- 

 tinue to illustrate themselves in the heavens. But this 

 was not sufficient. The scientific mind can find no re- 

 pose in the mere registration of sequence in nature. The 

 further question intrudes itself with resistless might, 

 Whence comes the sequence ? What is it that binds 

 the consequent to its antecedent in nature? The truly 

 scientific intellect never can attain rest until it reaches 

 the forces by which the observed succession is produced. 

 It was thus with Torricelli; it was thus with Newton; it 

 is thus pre-eminently with the scientific man of to-day. 

 In common with the most ignorant, he shares the belief 

 that spring will succeed winter, that summer will succeed 

 spring, that autumn will succeed summer, and that winter 

 will succeed autumn. But he knows still further and 

 this knowledge is essential to his intellectual repose that 



