GENERAL RESULTS. 287 



sciences obtain a sounder footing we see them revealing 

 to us, one after another, all the great principles pervading 

 the Cosmos. First the laws of motion are discovered, soon 

 followed by the discovery of the law of gravitation, and 

 these are found to be ruling principles of all heavenly 

 bodies, and to pervade the whole of space. And what 

 mathematics and astronomy have done for space, geology 

 does for time; time is shown to have brought about all 

 the changes which have been necessary to metamorphose 

 the gaseous mass which formed a nebula into rings, then 

 into planets with a central sun, and then each planet into 

 a harmonious little world giving life to myriads and myriads 

 of plants and animals: the law of evolution gives an 

 explanation of this everlasting Becoming. Next, chemistry 

 shows us law universally and uniformly obtaining from 

 suns to atoms, and through the spectroscope reveals "the 

 identity of matter and energy throughout this extreme 

 range." Then the laws of conservation of energy and 

 matter, and their transformation into new forms or modes 

 of action, are found, which reduce "all the phenomena of 

 the inorganic universe to one of law of universal simplicity 

 and generality." Lastly, the demonstration of the theory 

 of natural selection and the survival of the fittest extends 

 the domain of law to the organic world a law confirmed 

 every day more strongly by the discovery of intermediate 

 forms on the one hand, and by our better knowledge of 

 embryology on the other ; both guiding us back from the 

 present forms of life to less complex ancestral forms, and 

 from these further back still to simpler primitive ancestral 

 links until we arrive at the lowest original form of organism 

 the cell. 



It is unnecessary to dwell upon the scientific conse- 

 quences, both theoretical and practical, which the certainty 

 of knowledge of the presence of unchangeable laws must 

 inevitably bring about, for the preceding survey itself affords 

 numerous instances of the effects due to the discovery of 

 the permanence of law ; but it is needful we should point 

 out the one effect which most intimately affects every one 

 of us personally, and that is the revolution or modification 



