86 The Bible of Nature 



beauty, intelligence, come out of it, they must 

 somehow have been potentially in it. We may 

 try to substantiate the original antecedent in ab- 

 straction from its consequents, we must do so in 

 pursuing the scientific method. We may try to 

 think of the nebula as a whirling mass of meteor- 

 ites, and nothing more; but if the whole solar 

 system came out of that, we must as philosophers, 

 if not as scientists, say that '* There is nothing in 

 the End which was not also in the Beginning," 

 and if there is Logos at the end, we may be sure 

 that it was also at the beginning. 



With this explanation, is it not possible to return 

 without repugnance to the scientific position with 

 its central idea of a continuous natural develop- 

 ment? 



But some one may say, I am not clear in regard 

 to what you have said regarding science not pre- 

 tending to give explanations, but this much I 

 gather, that the picture you leave with us is that 

 of a world developing of itself. That is so, if you 

 do not forget to supplement this with the quotation 

 from Kant with which we closed the previous lec- 

 ture: *'The universe must sink into the abyss of 

 nothingness, unless we admit that, besides this 

 infinite chain of contingencies, there exists some- 

 thing that is primal and self-subsistent, something 

 which as the cause of this phenomenal world se- 

 cures its continuance and preservation." 



