RECAPITULATTON. 145 



in the only way in which the world could have 

 gone on, according to all that we can conceive of 

 it. This must, therefore, be the work of choice ; 

 and if so, it cannot be doubted, of a most wise 

 and benevolent Chooser. 



3. The appearance of choice is still further 

 illustrated by the variety as well as the number 

 of the laws selected. The laws are unlike one 

 another. Steam certainly expands at a very 

 different rate from air by the application of heat, 

 probably according to a different law : water 

 expands in freezing, but mercury contracts : heat 

 travels in a manner quite different through solids 

 and fluids. Every separate substance has its 

 own density, gravity, cohesion, elasticity, its re- 

 lations to heat, to electricity, to magnetism ; be- 

 sides all its chemical affinities, which form an 

 endless throng of laws, connecting every one sub- 

 stance in creation with every other, and different 

 for each pair anyhow taken. Nothing can look 

 less like a world formed of atoms operating upon 

 each other according to some universal and in- 

 evitable laws, than this does : if such a system 

 of things be conceivable, it cannot be our system. 

 We have, it may be, fifty simple substances in 

 the world ; each of which is invested with pro- 

 perties, both of chemical and mechanical action, 

 altogether different from those of any other sub- 

 stance. Every portion, however minute, of any of 

 these, possesses all the properties of the substance. 



