OPINION'S OP MEN OF SCIENCE. 395 



It is no new idea to seek, in the attendant satellite cilAPTER 

 of our earth, for illustrations and elucidations of ter- -X-Wni. 

 restrial phenomena. It has long been the opinion of General 

 scientific men, tliat the moon is, to a great extent, on'iunar 

 passing through a stage of its being, corresponding to piienomena. 

 one Avliich marked the prior existence of the planet 

 on which it waits, and to the intelligent occupants of 

 which it ministers so many important benefits. Mr. 

 Nasniyth, in the graphic elucidation of his views, cha- 

 racterized it as the great health-preserver, and scaven- 

 ger, which maintained the waters of our planet in con- 

 stant motion, and thus rescued us from the pestilence 

 and horrors which must ensue, were the great high- Practical 

 way of the nations to become a universally putrid and Jhe'^moon. 

 stagnant sea. Again, he compared it to a mighty fixed 

 engine, working with systematic precision in all our 

 estuaries and rivers, and dragging our merchant navies 

 up and down the great water thoroughfares of domes- 

 tic traflBc. Since ever the universal dominion of tlie 

 law of gravitation came to be fully recognised, a grow- 

 ing conviction has been present in the minds of the 

 students of science, that a perfect harmony prevails 

 throughout the whole created universe. This idea has, 

 indeed, been recently carried to an extravagant and 

 foolish length. Men of shallow and superficial views, 

 intent on carrying out this discovery to what they superficial 

 assumed must be its legitimate conclusions, have ad- theories, 

 vanced theories equally derogatory to the Creator and 

 his works. Mistaking uniformity for harmony, they 

 have assumed that our little planet is but a type in 

 miniature of the whole creation, and that God, in 

 multiplying worlds amid the immensities of space, 

 has only been repeating £he one idea of which we 

 are cognizant. Such a misconception of the powers 

 of the Infinite happily does not stand in need of any 

 elaborate argument to confute it, for every new dis- 

 closure, alike of the telescope and the microscope, re- 

 veals the boundless diversity which prevails amid the 



