INCOMPREHENSIBLE NATURE OF GOD. 369 



we have no chance of obtaining any except the 

 most erroneous and worthless guesses. The his- 

 tory of human speculations, as well as the nature 

 of the objects of them, shows how certainly this 

 must happen. The great generalizations which 

 have been established in one department of our 

 knowledge, have been applied in vain to the 

 purpose of throwing light on the other portions 

 which still continue in obscurity. When the 

 Newtonian philosophy had explained so many 

 mechanical facts, by the two great steps, of 

 resolving the action of a whole mass into the 

 actions of its minutest particles, and considering 

 these particles as centres of force, attempts 

 were naturally soon made to apply the same 

 mode of explanation to facts of other different 

 kinds. It was conceived that the whole of na- 

 tural philosophy must consist in investigating 

 the laws of force by which particles of different 

 substances attracted and repelled, and thus pro- 

 duced motions, or vibrations to and from the 

 particles. Yet what were the next great dis- 

 coveries in physics ? The action of a galvanic 

 wire upon a magnet ; which is not to attract or 

 repel it, but to turn it to the right and left ; to 

 produce motion, not to or from, but transverse to 

 the line drawn to the acting particles; and 

 again, the undulatory theory of light, in which 

 it appeared that the undulations must not be 

 longitudinal, as all philosophers, following the 

 w. 5 B B 



