ON THE BEAUTY OF NATURE. 267 
beauty is an indispensable concomitant of the highest perfection in other 
respects. Just as in mathematics, the law of action proved to be the law 
of least action ; that which at first appeared to be an arbitrary law, turned 
out, when it was fully investigated, to be the very means of doing the 
work with the least possible expenditure of force. So it might be here, 
and beauty may be necessarily associated with the simplest and best of 
all contrivances. But if that was so, it added force to the argument, because 
it compelled them to ask the question, ‘‘ How comes it that all these 
extraordinary qualities, accuracy, strength, usefulness, beauty, capacity for 
moral action, are all found bound up together so indissolubly that they 
could not separate one from the other?” The more we knew of Nature, 
the more we found these qualities united. Human Nature was of such a 
character, that the highest forms of morality were inseparable from it. 
The question was, what united them ? and when the question was put in that 
form, new force seemed added to the argumert which Lord Grimthorpe had 
put before them in a manner for which they were much indebted to him ; 
for there was one explanation which accounted for it all, namely, that the 
whole framework of Nature was designed by One mind, in which all 
ideals were so united that He could not do one good thing without doing 
all good things at the same time. But if they once lost sight of this central 
influence in the mass of conflicting forces, the whole manifestation became 
inexplicable. 
Mr. J. Hassett said that Lord Grimthorpe made a statement which 
should never be forgotten, namely, that “If one side is left to go on 
preaching its own dogmas and keeping discreet silence about objections 
which they cannot answer, and if the objectors kept silence too, the 
objections will be forgotten, or assumed to have been silenced, though 
nobody undertakes to say how, or when, or by whom.” That should be kept 
in mind. They who were standing up in these days, and had to bear much 
ridicule, should not be backward in bringing before their young people all 
the evidences they could upon these matters. Let nothing prevent them 
from repeating those grand ideas of God’s order and God’s perfection, as 
seen in His works. 
Lorp GriwtHorrE, in reply, thanked Dr. Wace for saving him the trouble 
of answering his friend, Mr. Ranyard. Some of them might remember that 
Sydney Smith, in some of his letters against America, talked about 
a “larcenous lake and swindling swamp.” He did not know whether 
people had any idea of that as a thing of beauty. The latter remarks of 
Dr. Wace were certainly very significant indeed, and he had no doubt they 
would turn out some day to be right, but he (Lord Grimthorpe), being a 
lawyer, could not venture to assume it. He could not venture to assume 
that beauty was a necessary concomitant of every kind of perfection, 
and he was never in the habit of assuming for the purpose of argument 
what he could not prove. He quite agreed with him that it did 
enforce the argument very materially. Mr. Boscawen’s remarks were 
interesting all through. It would be found that a good many people 
