12 THE STORY OF LIFE'S MECHANISM. 



inexplicable. To explain them many a sublime 

 conception of almighty power had arisen, and the 

 study of the heavenly bodies ever gave rise to the 

 highest thoughts of Deity. But Newton's law of 

 gravitation reduced the whole to the greatest 

 simplicity. Through the law and force of gravi- 

 tation these mysteries were brought within the 

 grasp of human understanding. They ceased to 

 be looked upon longer as supernatural, and became 

 natural phenomena so soon as the force of gravi- 

 tation was accepted as a part of nature. 



In other branches of natural phenomena the 

 same history followed. The forces and laws of 

 chemical affinity were formulated and studied, 

 and physical laws and forces were comprehended. 

 As these natural forces were grasped it became, 

 little by little, evident that the various pheno- 

 mena of nature were simply the result of nature's 

 forces acting in accordance with nature's laws. 

 Phenomena hitherto mysterious were one after 

 another brought within the realm of law, and as 

 this occurred a smaller and smaller portion of 

 them were left within the realm of the so-called 

 supernatural. By the middle of this century this 

 advance had reached a point where scientists, at 

 least, were ready to believe that nature's forces 

 were all-powerful to account for nature's phe- 

 nomena. Science had passed from the reign of 

 mysticism to the reign of law. 



But after chemistry and physics, with all the 

 forces that they could muster, had exhausted 

 their powers in explaining natural phenomena, 

 there apparently remained one class of facts which 

 was still left in the realm of the supernatural 



