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that is assigned to me. But in making these general observations I have a 

 very clear conception of the whole scope and character of such a work ; how 

 it should begin, how it should traverse the whole ground of science, showing, 

 step by step, the absolute impossibility of matter making the intelligence by 

 which the action of matter in the world is regulated ; how impossible it is 

 that vegetables can invent, if I may so say, the elaborate processes by which 

 they grow and propagate their species, by which, when they die, they leave 

 their successors, and by which those successors do the same ; how absolutely 

 impossible it is, if you go into the animal kingdom, the same thing can 

 occur, that animals, beginning with those which are so minute that we 

 cannot discover them with our unaided powers, could have invented the 

 conditions under which they live, and the transformations into other forms 

 of life ; how absolutely impossible it is that all the transformations should 

 have gone on without any guide — because the idea is that they have 

 invented something above their own existence ; how absolutely contrary to 

 all reason and sense this is in all branches of life, and still more how impos- 

 sible it is in inanimate nature, (Applause.) If it is possible that any 

 living thing could perform such an operation, it is absolutely impossible to 

 suppose that an unliving could do so. We are brought to this one general 

 conclusion, having reference to all things with and without life — namely, 

 that the power of human observation is limited. If people go to Maskelyne 

 & Cook's, they think that some of the things which are done there are 

 almost miraculous, because the observation is not commensurate with 

 what passes before the eyes. In the same way, in studying nature we 

 are brought to the limits of our power of observation. All materialists 

 admit that there is a point of minuteness which the human faculties 

 of observation cannot go beyond. If, therefore, the result of all modern 

 science and material efibrt is to leave you at a point beyond which material 

 effort cannot reach, beyond which you have to deal with inferential de- 

 ductions from that which you can see to that which you cannot see — if 

 that is the result of all modem science, as it is its great glory and triumph, 

 observe how you are brought in direct relation with that which man cannot 

 appreciate with his own senses, but only with his intellect, and therefore into 

 the realm which we say is the realm of the power and wisdom of God. Thus, 

 every step is a new proof of the impossibility of any theory of what may be 

 called material growth and development, and is, on the other hand, an absolute 

 proof of the necessity of adopting the belief that there is a Power above 

 which alone has prescribed the whole law for that which is living and 

 unliving on the face of the earth — that law which mankind alone are capable 

 of appreciating by the use of faculties which they could not have invented 

 for themselves, but which they have received and are bound to cherish as the 

 greatest gift of God. Such, in general terms, would be the scope of the 

 work to be presented to the general reader of this country— a work which 

 should present to him not merely subject for contemplation, but, at the 

 same time, arguments that will convince him of the truth of what is 

 challenged, and also bring him to tho point of union with the ideas which 



