A6 
around an axis of motion, with which the nebular hypothesis 
begins. If he uses the analogical reasoning we are criticising, 
he must proceed thus: Matter is naturally inert ; momentum 
must therefore be derived from some prior material force. 
This rotary motion, which the nebular hypothesis supposes to 
be the first state, cannot be the first state.. Again, vapour 
implies evaporation. Sensible heat suggests latent heat. 
Hence this other first state of incandescent volatilisation 
cannot be the first state. Thus, by this logic, before each 
first state there must have been another first state. 
Beneath the lowest deep another depth, 
Still threatening to devour me, opens wide. 
This, then, is the eternity of “ Naturalismus,’—it is 
Atheism. 
This wholesome limitation of analogical inference has been 
sometimes met with disdainful resistance. It has been said 
that it would subvert the very basis of natural science. It is 
exclaimed, ‘‘ If we may not securely reason, ‘ like causes, like 
effects,’ the very lever of scientific discovery is taken from 
us.” The answer is very simple, that there is no intention to 
rob science of her prime organon, “ Like causes, like effects.” 
The main drift of this treatise has been to defend and explain 
it. Only we do not desire to see the votaries of inductive 
science disgracing themselves by the very shallow blunder 
(a blunder which the earliest class-book of Logic points 
out) of mistaking an all important proposition for its erroneous 
converse, “‘ Like effects, the same cause.” This is really the 
extent of our caution. The inductive logic is in no danger of 
being cramped or restricted by theology, within the proper 
domain of natural science. ‘That domain is the known present 
and the known past of human history, where testimony and 
experience give us sufficient assurance of the absence of the 
supernatural. In this field, natural mduction is useful and 
legitimate; it has been the honoured instrument of splendid 
and beneficent achievements. Let physicists continue to 
employ it there, to the full, for the further benefit of mankind 
and the illustration of the Creator’s wisdom and glory. But 
in the unknown eternity of the past prior to human history, 
it has no place. It is like the mariner’s compass carried into 
the stellar spaces. We know that the poles of this globe have 
a certain attraction for it, and, therefore, on this globe it is a 
precious guide. But away in the regions of Arcturus or the 
Pleiades, where we are not certain whether the spheres have 
poles, or whether they are magnetic, we are not authorised to - 
follow it. 
