40 



FACTS AND FANCIES 



no certain basis either for science or for practi- 

 cal life. All would be capricious and uncertain, 

 and we could calculate on nothing. Law thus 

 adapts the universe to be the residence of ra- 

 tional beings, and nothing else could. Viewed 

 in this way, we see that natural laws must be, in 

 their relation to a Creator, voluntary limitations 

 of his power in certain directions for the bene- 

 fit of his creatures. To secure this end, nature 

 must be a perfect machine, all the parts of which 

 are adjusted for permanent and harmonious 

 action. It may perhaps rather be compared 

 to a vast series of machines, each running in- 

 dependently like the trains on a railway, but all 

 connected and regulated by an invisible guid- 

 ance which determines the time and the dis- 

 tance of each, and the manner in which the less 

 urgent and less intportant shall give place to 

 others. Even this does not express the whole 

 truth ; for the harmony of nature must be con- 

 nected with constant change and progress to- 

 ward higher perfection. Does this conception 

 of natural law give us any warrant for the idea 

 that the universe is a product of chance? Is 

 it not the highest realization of all that we cp.n 

 conceive of the plans of superhuman intelli- 

 gence? 



