THE SYSTEM 73 



it then was to the rules of human conduct, and 

 thereby laid the foundation of that spirit of 

 tolerance, justice, and gentleness which was the 

 hope of our civilisation until it was buried under 

 the wave of homicidal emotion which has swept 

 through the world." On which it is surely 

 reasonable to ask how a chemical reaction can 

 learn so to alter itself as to exhibit " tolerance, 

 justice, and gentleness," attributes which it had 

 not previously possessed ? Such claims of this and 

 other writers, who would find in the laws of 

 Nature as formulated to-day (forgetful that their 

 formulae may to-morrow be cast into the furnace) 

 a rule of life as well as a full explanation of the 

 cosmos, resemble in their lack of base an inverted 

 pyramid. 



