194 LIFE IN NATURE. 



organic world. Organic life, taken as a whole, pre- 

 sents itself to the eye of science as a vibration. It 

 is summed up in opposite and equal processes. And 

 this idea applies equally to the whole sphere of 

 physical events. However varied, however vast, 

 however minute, may be the changes which mark 

 the course of nature, they all have this character. 

 Nature vibrates, with perpetual plus and minus ; it 

 vibrates, and no more. What music it thus makes 

 in the ear of Omnipotence, into what vast sym- 

 phony its endless, unintermitting, infinitely-varied 

 pulsings may be wrought, we know not. It is 

 enough that the Great Musician knows. But this 

 we cannot fail to note : that be it wrought into what- 

 soever forms, spread out over whatsoever time, equal 

 plus and minus are nonentity. An 0, analysed 

 and spread out, and made to seem to be. This is 

 what the physical world avows itself to the long- 

 gazing, and at last penetrating eye of man. So 

 much to him, so much in seeming, is it truly nothing 

 then a painted vision, and no more? Must we 

 mourn the loss, the utter sinking away of our 

 imaginary world into a false play of illusions ? 



