IWS 



earning 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



380 



verse inaccessible to us, or they may change 

 in process of time ; for the period over which 

 our knowledge extends may be to the plans 

 of the Creator like the lifetime of some 

 minute insect which might imagine human 

 arrangements of no great permanence to be 

 of eternal duration. DAWSON Facts and 

 Fancies in Modern Science, lect. 1, p. 39. 

 (A. B. P. S.) 



1858. Not Matters of 



Experience Faith Demanded by Scientific 

 Doctrines. The most persistent outer rela- 

 tions which science believes in are never 

 matters of experience at all, but have to 

 be disengaged from under experience by a 

 process of elimination that is, by ignoring 

 conditions which are always present. The 

 elementary laws of mechanics, physics, and 

 chemistry are all of this sort. The principle 

 of uniformity in Nature is of this sort; it 

 has to be sought under and in spite of the 

 most rebellious appearances; and our con- 

 viction of its truth is far more like a re- 

 ligious faith than like assent to a demon- 

 stration. JAMES Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 28, 

 p. 636. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



1859. The Methods of 



God Science Does Not Reach Causes. In 

 the use of this word law, as applied to Na- 

 ture, we are often grossly misunderstood. 

 Says a recent writer, somewhat contemptu- 

 ously, " The philosopher knows no better the 

 cause of the law of gravitation than the ig- 

 norant man." The author, in his simplicity., 

 is unaware that laws, not causes, are the 

 end of true philosophy. We seek to study 

 out the method of God's doings in Nature, 

 and enunciations of this his method or 

 will are what is meant by the " laws of 

 Nature." If those who look coldly on sci- 

 ence knew better its aims, we should hear 

 less of the infidelity of the term law, and 

 find fewer infidels or rejecters of that revela- 

 tion which God has spread before us. 



We know that this is not the only revela- 

 tion ; that another tells man of his duties and 

 responsibilities, of the celestial sympathy 

 which surrounds him and his immortal des- 

 tiny subjects far beyond the teachings of 

 physical or brute nature. The one is but 

 the complement of the other; the two har- 

 monious in their truths, as in their exalted 

 origin. DANA Proceedings of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 1855, voL ix, p. 1. 



I860. The Thoughts of 



God. Let me not Be understood to imply a 

 belief that man cannot attain to any abso- 

 lute scientific truth; for I believe that he 

 can, and I feel that every great generaliza- 

 tion brings him a step nearer to the prom- 

 ised goal. Moreover, I sympathize with that 

 beautiful idea of Oersted which he expressed 

 in the now familiar phrase, " The laws of 

 Nature are the thoughts of God "; but then 

 I also know that our knowledge of these 

 laws is as yet very imperfect, and that our 

 human systems must be at the best but very 



partial expressions of the truth. Still, it is 

 a fact worthy of our profound attention 

 that in each of the physical sciences, as in 

 astronomy, the successive great generaliza- 

 tions which have marked its progress have 

 included and expanded rather than super- 

 seded those which went before them. Through 

 the great revolutions which have taken place 

 in the forms of thought the elements of 

 truth in the successive systems have been 

 preserved, while the error has been as con- 

 stantly eliminated; and so, as I believe, 

 it always will be, until the last generaliza- 

 tion of all brings us into the presence of 

 that law which is indeed the thought of 

 God. COOKE The New Chemistry, lect. 1, p. 

 2. (A., 1899.) 



1861. 



Used in Works 



of Nature as in Works of Man Struc- 

 ture Adapted to Their Demands Design in 

 Structure of Barnacles. Now, the laws of 

 Nature appear to be employed in the system 

 of Nature in a manner precisely analogous 

 to that in which we ourselves employ them. 

 The difficulties and obstructions which are 

 presented by one law in the way of accom- 

 plishing a given purpose are met and over- 

 come exactly on the same principle on which 

 they are met and overcome by man, viz., by 

 knowledge of other laws and by resource in 

 applying them that is, by ingenuity in me- 

 chanical contrivance. It cannot be too much 

 insisted on that this is a conclusion of pure 

 science. The relation which an organic 

 structure bears to its purpose in Nature 

 can be recognized as certainly as the same 

 relation between a machine and its purpose 

 in human art. It is absurd to maintain, for 

 example, that the purpose of the cellular ar- 

 rangement of material in combining light- 

 ness with strength is a purpose legitimately 

 cognizable by science in the Menai Bridge, 

 but is not as legitimately cognizable when 

 it is seen in Nature, actually serving the 

 same use. The little barnacles which 

 crust the rocks at low tide, and which 

 to live there at all must be able to re- 

 sist the surf, have the building of their 

 shells constructed strictly with reference 

 to this necessity. It is a structure all hol- 

 lowed and chambered on the plan which en- 

 gineers have so lately discovered as an ar- 

 rangement of material by which the power 

 of resisting strain or pressure is multiplied 

 in an extraordinary degree. That shell is as 

 pure a bit of mechanics as the bridge, both 

 being structures in which the same arrange- 

 ment is adapted to the same end. AEGYLL 

 Reign of Law, ch. 2, p. 59. (Burt.) 



1862. LAWS, ORDINARY, SUPER- 

 SEDED The Preservation of the Jews Result 

 Yet Reached by the Use of Means. The 

 preservation of the Jews as a distinct peo- 

 ple during so many centuries of complete 

 dispersion is a fact standing nearly, if not 

 absolutely, alone in the history of the world. 

 It is at variance with all other experience 

 of the laws which govern the amalgamation 



