LIVING FORMS. THE LAW OF FORM. 113 



not arbitrarily fix our attention on any one point, 

 and take that as a commencement. There is no 

 origin, or first, in nature : it is to the intellect a 

 chain without beginning as without end. Every 

 point of time is in this respect like every other; 

 nor when we tax our imagination to the utmost, can 



we approximate in the least degree nearer to the 



.~^f 



beginning than we are now. That divine act, to 



which all events are to be ascribed as their true 

 cause, may be associated as well quite as rationally 

 and assuredly much more devoutly with that part 

 of the sequence which is present now, as with any 

 we can conceive to have been in the past. 



Whatever direction, therefore, any motion may 

 possess at any time, it has been assumed under the 

 same conditions as guide its subsequent course. The 

 law that motion takes the direction of least resistance 

 has prevailed from the first, and has given to it that 

 direction in which we see it operate. The same may 

 be said in respect to those impulses or forces from 

 which particular motions arise : these also have been 

 determined by that very necessity of motion which 

 they may appear to supersede. We see an instance 



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