8 THE PEOGEESS AND SPIEIT OF 



' Cosmos ' and, at an earlier period, D'Alembert and Laplace, 



have sanctioned the general conception, though not really 



denning it beyond that attempt at generalisation just noticed ; 

 and which would have existed even if no such mysterious 

 word as c Unity ' had been used to signify the ultimate end 

 in view. We readily admit it as probable or certain, that 

 numerous facts hitherto insulated or anomalous, and even 

 whole classes of phenomena unexplained by science, will 

 hereafter be submitted to common and known laws. And we 

 further believe that many laws themselves, now of partial 

 application, will hereafter merge in others of higher scope 

 and generality. We shall speedily have to notice certain 

 cases where this amalgamation has so far advanced as to 

 furnish an entirely new basis for research, scarcely seen or 

 anticipated before. But admitting what we have full right 

 to presume, that this concentration may yet be carried much 

 further, still the attainment or even the conception of unity, 

 in any strict sense of the word, lies indefinitely beyond; 

 shrouded by an obscurity which words may seek to penetrate, 

 but which human intellect can reach only in that one sublime 

 sense of the unity of the Divine Creating Power. We may 

 reduce to a small number the many forms of matter which 

 are elementary to our present knowledge ; we may show 

 the identity of certain forces, hitherto deemed elementary, by 

 their mutual convertibility ; we may accept the phrase of 

 Laplace, <Les phenomenes de la Nature ne sont que les 

 resultats mathematiques d'un petit nombre de lois im- 

 muables;' and yet we shall never prove that there is but 

 one kind of matter or one nature of force, or that a single 

 law governs all the phenomena around us. To put forward, 

 therefore, the phrase and conception of f Unity of Science ' 

 as the final term of our labours, is to inflict a metaphysical 

 issue upon them, for which there is no warranty either in 

 reason or practical use. Bishop Berkeley has somewhere 



