MAEKS OF MIND IN NATURE. 305 



absolute proof, of mind-marks iu nature. Of purpose the 

 teleological method is avoided, because both in Darwinism 

 and in much recent physicism it is held that there are 

 qualities in matter itself equal to do all that is implied in 

 the well known Doctrine of Final Causes. 



The scientific study of nature may be entered on and 

 pursued from several different points of view and under the 

 influence of different motives. Some, ignoring the question 

 of origin, or having the conviction that it lies outside of the 

 scope of science, content themselves with trying to add to 

 man's knowledge of nature by simply recording the phe- 

 nomena and the facts which fall under their observation. 

 They are satisfied with, and find their reward in, the increase 

 of scientific information. Seldom, however, are their labours 

 more worthy of the name of science, than the labours asso- 

 ciated with making a bare list of the names of the kings ot 

 a country are worthy to be called its history. Others, 

 tracing phenomena to the action of a self-originated and 

 self-guided something which they name natural law, hold it 

 to be their duty to proclaim, that science can make no true 

 progress till its students cease to burden themselves with the 

 belief that thought underlies things, and that there is or 

 ever can be a " knowable supernatural." They find in 

 matter material energy — an inworking quality which, inde- 

 pendently of non-material guidance, has realized all the, so- 

 called, living forms which ever were, and which now are, on 

 the earth or in the sea. But there is a third group of natural 

 science students which consists of men who are not afraid to 

 deal with the question of origin. It has been settled for 

 them, and they are not only satisfied with this explanation, 

 but throughout the studies of their life they find innumer- 

 able facts utterly unintelligible apart from it. What a noble 

 band have worked from this point of view of origin, — 

 Linnaeus, Cuvier, Owen, and Agassiz ; Kepler, Newton, 

 Brewster, Clerk Maxwell, and Lord Kelvin ! Their fol- 

 lowers, even at a great distance, work under the impression 

 that the facts and phenomena of natural and physical 

 sciences are but as the steps of a ladder planted on earth 

 but reaching into the presence of Him Who has made all, 

 AVho is in all, and over all, " for without Him was not any- 

 thing made that was made." Thus in the wide fields ot 

 Nature — in the Animal and the Plant Kingdoms — every fact 

 touching form, and structure, and habit, and environments 

 is literally laden with meaning. We see not things only, 



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