STUPENDOUS REACH OF THE LAW. xli 



metamorphosis occurs ; and they are of value as leading us to in- 

 quire in what shape the remnant of force has escaped, when the 

 apparent results are not equivalent to the cause." And it may be 

 added, that it is to these investigations that we are indebted for the 

 clear and comprehensive establishment of the principle as a law of 

 physical nature ; psychological analysis having only shown that it 

 extends much further than it is the business of experimental science 

 to go. 



Thus the law characterized by Faraday as the highest in phys- 

 ical science which our faculties permit us to perceive, has a far 

 more extended sway; it might well have been proclaimed the 

 highest law of all science the most far-reaching principle that 

 adventuring reason has discovered in the universe. Its stupendous 

 reach spans all orders of existence. Not only does it govern the 

 movements of the heavenly bodies, but it presides over the genesis 

 of the constellations ; not only does it control those radiant floods 

 of power which fill the eternal spaces, bathing, warming, illumining 

 and vivifying our planet, but it rules the actions and relations of 

 men, and regulates the march of terrestrial affairs. Nor is its do- 

 minion limited to physical phenomena ; it prevails equally in the 

 world of mind, controlling all the faculties and processes of thought 

 and feeling. The star-suns of the remoter galaxies dart their ra- 

 diations across the universe ; and although the distances are so pro- 

 found that hundreds of centuries may have been required to traverse 

 them, the impulses of force enter the eye, and impressing an atomic 

 change upon the nerve, give origin to the sense of sight. Star 

 and nerve-tissue are parts of the same system stellar and nervous 

 forces are correlated. Nay more ; sensation awakens thought and 

 kindles emotion, so that this wondrous dynamic chain binds into 

 living unity the realms of matter and mind through measureless 

 amplitudes of space and time. 



And if these high realities are but faint and fitful glimpses 

 which science has obtained in the dim dawn of discovery, what 

 must be the glories of the coming day ? If indeed they are but 



