I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 39 



in our minds by the improvement of natural 

 knowledge. Men have acquired the ideas of tin- 

 practically infinite extent of the universe and of 

 its practical eternity ; they are familiar with the 

 conception that our earth is but an infinitesimal 

 fragment of that part of the universe which can 

 be seen; and that, nevertheless, its duration is, 

 as compared with our standards of time, infinite. 

 They have further acquired the idea that man is 

 but one of innumerable forms of life now existing on 

 the globe, and that the present existences are but 

 the last of an immeasurable series of predecessors. 

 Moreover, every step they have made in natural 

 knowledge has tended to extend and rivet in their 

 minds the conception of a definite order of the 

 universe which is embodied in what are called, by 

 an unhappy metaphor, the laws of Nature and 

 to narrow the range and loosen the force of men's 

 belief in spontaneity, or in changes other than 

 such as arise out of that definite order itself. 



Whether these ideas are well or ill founded is 

 not the question. No one can deny that they 

 exist, and have been the inevitable outgrowth of 

 the improvement of natural knowledge. And if 

 so, it cannot be doubted that they are changing 

 the form of men's most cherished and most 

 important convictions. 



J And as regards the second point the extent to 

 which the improvement of natural knowledge has 



