NATURE AND LAW. 383 



uninteresting to see in the closing paragraph of my first attempt 

 to work out the " Principles of General and Comparative Physi- 

 ology " (1839), the conception I had then formed, and to which 

 I still adhere, of the highest aim of scientific research : — 



" If, then, we can conceive that the same Almighty fiat which 

 " created matter out of nothmg — impressed upon it one simple 

 " law which should regulate the association of its masses into 

 " systems of almost illimitable extent, controlling its movements, 

 " fixina; the times of the commencement and cessation of each 

 " world, and balancing against each other the perturbing influences 

 " to which its own actions give rise — should be the cause, not only 

 " of the general uniformity, but of the particular variety of their 

 " conditions, governing the changes in the form and structure of 

 " each individual globe protracted through an existence of count- 

 " less centuries, and adjusting the alternation of ' seasons and times 

 '* ' and months and years ; ' should people all these worlds with 

 " living beings of endless diversity of nature, providing for their 

 "support, their happiness, their mutual reliance, ordaining their 

 " constant decay and succession, not merely as individuals, but as 

 " races, and adapting them in every minute particular to the con- 

 " ditions of their dwellings; and should harmonize and blend 

 " together all the innumerable multitude of these actions, making 

 " their very perturbations sources of new power : when our know- 

 " ledge is sufficiently advanced to comprehend these things, then 

 " shall we be led to a far higher and nobler conception of the 

 " Divine mind than we have at present the means of forming. 

 " But, even then, how infinitely short of the reality will be any 

 " view that our limited comprehension can attain, seeing, as we 

 " ever must in this life, ' as through a glass, darkly ! ' How much 

 " will remain to be revealed to us in that glorious future, when the 

 " light of truth shall burst upon us in unclouded lustre, but when 

 " our mortal vision shall be purified and strengthened so as to 

 " sustain its dazzling brilliancy ! " 



I purpose, at some future time, to apply the above method of 

 inquiry to the Law of " Evolution," which is very commonly sup- 

 posed to "account for" the existing fabric of the universe — 

 animate, as well as inanimate ; and to show that it really does 

 nothing more than express an orderly sequence of phenomena, 

 leaving the cause of that order entirely unexplained. 



