EXTRACT VIII. 



ON CONTINUITY THROUGHOUT NATURE AND THE 

 COSMOS, OR UNIVERSE. 



CONTINUITY, as actually existent throughout nature, so 

 far as we can realise, and throughout the cosmos so far 

 as we can infer, is the great thread of principle, albeit 

 evolutionary, on which is, or can be, strung the accepted 

 fragments of knowledge which have been won from their 

 environment by the observation and intelligence of the 

 human race, in its enquiring progress through the ages 

 and the unknown, and the medium of connection in which we 

 piece together these fragments, harmonise their bearings, 

 realise their relationships to each other, and succeed to 

 some infinitesimal extent thereby in giving a reason for 

 the order and sequence of "events" and "things" per- 

 ceived throughout the cosmos, or universe. 



Thus the fragments, or units, of knowledge, differenti- 

 ated from the body of the absolutely unknown by the observa- 

 tion and thought of mankind, and called, or known, by 

 the names of eternity, time, space, dimension, energy, gross 

 and chemical matter, ponderable and imponderable, in- 

 organic and organic, animate and inanimate nature, vege- 

 table and animal organisms in particular, lower and 

 higher, automatism and intelligence, mind and spirit, 

 mental and moral attributes, thought and ideation, blind 

 " clinging to fate," or passive resistance and active 

 aspiration towards the ideally perfect and attainable, yea, 

 every fragment of knowledge, by whatever name known, 

 of which we are possessed, can be strung on this thread, 

 viewed apart in its proper proportions and in its cosmic 



