.-.JJ 



232 



FACTS AND FANCIES 



preciable by the ordinary observer, enable the 

 astronomer to predict the discovery of new 

 planets. A line in a spectrum, without signifi- 

 cance to the uninitiated, foretells a new element. 

 The merest fragment, sufficient only for micro- 

 scopic examination, enables the palaeontologist 

 to describe to incredulous audit(ors some.organ- 

 ism altogether unknown in its entire structures. 

 What possible reason can there be for exclud- 

 ing such indications of the past and the future 

 from a revelation made by him who knows per- 

 fectly the end from the beginning, and to whom 

 the future results of human actions to the end 

 of time must be as evident as the simplest train 

 of causes and effects is to us ? It is Huxley, 

 I think, who says that if the laws affecting hu- 

 man conduct were fully known to us, it would 

 have been possible to calculate a thousand years 

 ago the exact state of affairs in Britain at this 

 moment. Probably such a calculation might be 

 too complicated for us, even if the data were 

 given ; but it cannot be too complicated for 

 the Divine Mind, and possibly might even 

 be mastered by some intelligences in the 

 universe subject to God, but higher than 

 man. 



That there should be suffering at all in the 



