COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



It is either symmetry or confusion, law or chance, 

 and between the two antagonist conceptions 

 there can be no compromise. If the law of cau- 

 sation is universal, we must accept the theory 

 of law. If it has ever, in any one instance, been 

 violated, we may be excused for taking up with 

 the theory of chance. Now we know that all 

 the vast bodies in this sidereal universe move 

 on for untold ages in their orbits, in strict con- 

 formity to law. In conformity to law, the solar 

 system in all its complexity has grown out of 

 a homogeneous nebula ; and the crust of the 

 cooling earth has condensed into a rigid surface 

 fit for the maintenance of organic life. Out of 

 plastic materials furnished by this surface and 

 the air and moisture by which it is enveloped, 

 organic life has arisen and been multiplied in 

 countless differing forms, all in accordance with 

 law. Of this aggregate of organic existence, 

 man, the most complex and perfect type, lives 

 and moves and has his being in strict conformity 

 to law. His periods of activity and repose are 

 limited by planetary rotations. His achieve- 

 ments, physical and mental, are determined by 

 the rate of his nutrition, and by the molecular 

 structure and relative weight of the nervous 

 matter contained in him. His very thoughts 

 must chase each other along definite paths and 

 contiguous channels marked out by the laws 

 of association. Throughout these various phe- 

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