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UNITY OF THE CREATIVE POWER THROUGHOUT 

 CREATION. 



[WRITTEN IN 1867.] 



As a general question this is answered by general 

 belief. But what we call belief in the world is often 

 only vague conception or unmeaning assent. It is well 

 to hold in hand, for ready use, some special evidences 

 for a truth thus momentous one so closely connected 

 with the attribute of individuality and design in the 

 Creator. 



Astronomy, through its wonderful interpreter, 

 Light, gives answer for that which is most remote in 

 universal space. The most minute telescopic stars, 

 the faintest forms of nebulas transmit light to us, and 

 are known to exist solely by this transmission. If there 

 be any elemental power, having true and proper unity, 

 it is that of light as it comes to us from the celestial 

 bodies. The laws of its reflection, refraction, and 

 polarisation are the same, as well as the rate of motion 

 through space, shown by the phenomena of aberration ; 

 while the photographic image of Sirius (a star having 

 a parallax of little more than a quarter of a second) 

 gives proof of a chemical action of light from this 

 enormous distance identical in kind with that of our 

 sun, or of the artificial lights we create for experiment 

 in our lecture-rooms, 



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