PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 173 



and beset by barriers through which no loop-hole of escape appears. 

 The mind thus baffled and bewildered in its backward inquest 

 through illimitable series, in which to its dismay is found at no 

 great distance — whether in atom, or in universe, — the chasm of a 

 strange and incomprehensible discontinuity, the inevitable transi- 

 tion to an entirely different order of links from those made think- 

 able by experience, seems driven in the last resort to the unifying 

 induction of a single, first, eternal, and all-powerful Cause — from 

 which all other causes are dependent and derived. 



This ultimate and highest induction of scientific thought — the 

 Inscrutable made Absolute — is restful and satisfying. This ultimate 

 and highest induction — as highest and ultimate, cannot be manipu- 

 lated as a " working hypothesis." This ultimate and highest in- 

 duction — as such — cannot be subjected to the subsequent verification 

 of mathematical deduction. This ultimate and highest induction 

 detracts nothing from the certainty of orderly sequence so irresist- 

 ibly impressed upon us by every deepening channel of research, 

 but gives us rational ground and guarantee of such unfailing regu- 

 larity. This ultimate and highest induction accepting to the utter- 

 most the mechanical interpretation of nature's administration, — 

 whose ceaseless evolution seems ever opening up new vistas of an 

 automatic teleology, — gives significance to our imperfect conception 

 of a regulated system, (so necessarily involved in the very existence 

 and operation of a " machine,") and accounts consistently for the 

 unfaltering obedience and instantaneous response of all the count- 

 less atoms of the universe to the reign of " law," by positing behind 

 such law — an Infinite Law-giver. 



In Richard Hooker's never trite though memorable words : 

 " Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is 

 the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world : all things 

 in heaven and earth do her homage, — the very least as feeling her 

 care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power." 



