36 THE REIGN OF LAW. 



spondences exist, and that they seem to be the re- 

 sult of physical laws of development and growth." 

 Very likely ; but how these correspondences 

 have arisen, and are daily arising, is not the 

 question, and it is immaterial how that question 

 may be answered. Do those correspondences 

 exist, or do they not ? The perception of them 

 by our mind is as much a fact as the sight or 

 touch of the things in which they appear. They 

 may have been produced by growth — they may 

 have been the result of a process of development, 

 — but it is not the less the development of a 

 mental purpose. It is the end subserved that 

 we absolutely know. What alone is doubtful and 

 obscure is precisely that which alone we are told 

 is the legitimate object of our research, — viz., the 

 means by which that end has been attained. 

 Take one instance out of millions. The poison 

 of a deadly snake — let us for a moment con- 

 sider what this is. It is a secretion of definite 

 chemical properties which have reference, not 

 only — not even mainly — to the organism of the 

 animal in which it is developed, but specially 

 to the organism of another animal which it is 



