THEORY OF DIRECT CREATION. 25 



the unvarying action and proper equilibrium 

 of the laws of Nature throughout the Cosmos. 



As an anonymous writer has well remarked,* 

 " Undisturbed harmony presupposes a power of 

 maintaining harmony. We look out upon the 

 heavens and behold a harmony and order abso- 

 lutely intact. There is therefore somewhere the 

 power of preserving, and there can be no power 

 of disturbing that harmony, for else such in- 

 fluence would be manifest by desperate irrup- 

 tions of disorder. We feel, we know that the 

 heavens constitute a mighty system of order, and 

 we do wrong to our native perceptions of analogy 

 if we allow that there can co-exist with such a 

 system, another whose motive is disorder, yet 

 which does not show itself in disturbance on the 

 other." 



The unity of the system of Nature is a totally 

 different thing from the unity of design in the 

 construction of organic forms. The latter 

 theory, as commonly interpreted by the doctrine 

 of Special Creation, involves us in innumerable 

 difficulties and absurdities. The theory of Pro- 

 chronism,j* which represents the world as created 



* " Freelight," vol. i. p. 363. f Gossc's " Omphalos." 



