ON PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW 9 



tism into mechanical force; and mechanical force again 

 into light and heat. The Proteus changes, but he is ever 

 the same; and his changes in nature, supposing no miracle 

 to supervene, are the expression, not of spontaneity, but 

 of physical necessity. A perpetual motion, then, is deemed 

 impossible, because it demands the creation of energy, 

 whereas the principle of Conservation is — no creation, but 

 infinite conversion. It is an old remark that the law 

 which molds a tear also rounds a planet. In the applica- 

 tion of law in nature the terms great and small are un- 

 known. Thus the principle referred to teaches us that 

 the Italian wind, gliding over the crest of the Matterhorn, 

 is as firmly ruled as the earth in its orbital revolution round 

 the sun; and that the fall of its vapor into clouds is ex- 

 actly as much a matter of necessity as the return of the sea- 

 sons. The dispersion, therefore, of the slightest mist by 

 the special volition of the Eternal, would be as much a 

 miracle as the rolling of the Ehone over the Grimsel pre- 

 cipices, down the valley of Hasli to Meyringen and Brientz. 

 It seems to me quite beyond the present power of 

 science to demonstrate that the Tyrolese priest, or his 

 colleague of the Rhone valley, asked for an * 'impossi- 

 bility" in praying for good weather; but Science can 

 demonstrate the incompleteness of the knowledge of nat- 

 ure which limited their prayers to this narrow ground; 

 and she may lessen the number of instances in which we 

 *'ask amiss," by showing that we sometimes pray for the 

 performance of a miracle when we do not intend it. She 

 does assert, for example, that without a disturbance of 

 natural law, quite as serious as the stoppage of an eclipse, 

 or the rolling of the river Niagara up the Falls, no act of 

 humiliation, individual or national, could call one shower 



