OP THE COSMOS. INTRODUCTION. 15 



groups of physical processes from being comprehended in 

 their causal connection. All was reduced to ever recurring 

 antitheses of cold and heat, moisture and drought, primitive 

 density and rarity ; and even to the effecting of alterations 

 in the material world by means of a kind of internal antago- 

 nism (antiperistasis), which reminds us of our present 

 hypotheses of opposite polarities and the contrasts of -f 

 and . ( 22 ) Aristotle's supposed solutions of problems do 

 but reproduce the facts themselves in disguise; and in 

 explaining meteorological and optical processes, his elsewhere 

 ever powerful and concise style often passes into self com- 

 placent diffuseness or Hellenic verbal redundancy. As the 

 mind of Aristotle was but little directed to diversity of sub- 

 stances, but chiefly to the consideration of motion, we see 

 the fundamenal idea of ascribing all telluric natural phse- 

 nomena to the impulse of the motion of the heavens, (i. e. 

 the revolution of the celestial sphere), recurring continually, 

 always indicated and cherished with special partiality, but 

 not presented with definiteness or precision. ( 23 ) The 

 impulse here spoken of imports only the communication 

 of motion as the ground of all terrestrial phaenomena. Pan- 

 theistic views are excluded : the Godhead is the highest 

 " presiding Unity, regulating all things, revealing Himself in 

 all spheres of the entire Universe, giving to each creature its 

 destination, and hoi ding all together by His absolute power ,"( 24 ) 

 The ideas of purpose and adaptation are not so much ap- 

 plied to the subordinate processes of nature, (those of in- 

 organic elementary nature), as by preference to the higher 

 organisations ( 25 ) of the animal and vegetable worlds. It 

 is remarkably striking that in the teaching of Aristotle, as 

 if he had been aware of the distribution of masses and the 



