Il8 THE REIGN OF LAW. 



and the Electrician. Under that analysis Matter 

 dissolves and disappears, surviving only as the 

 phenomena of Force ; which again is seen con- 

 vers"ine along: all its lines to some common centre 

 — "sloping through darkness up to God."* 



Even the writers who have incurred most reason- 

 able suspicion as to the drift of their teaching, 

 give nevertheless constant witness to what may 

 be called the purely mental quality of the ulti- 

 mate results of physical inquiry. It has been said 

 with perfect truth that " the fundamental ideas of 

 modern Science are as transcendental as any of 

 the axioms in ancient philosophy."f We have seen 

 that one of the senses in which Law is habitually 

 used is to designate abstract ideas and doctrines 

 of this kind. So far from these doctrines and 

 ideas having a tendency to Materialism, they serve 

 rather to bring inside the strict domain of Science 

 ideas which in the earlier stages of human know- 

 ledge lay wholly within the region of Faith or of 

 Belief. For example, the writer of the Epistle to 

 the Hebrews specially declares that it is by Faith 



* Tennyson's In Memoriam. 



t Lewes' Philosophy of Aristotle, p. 66. 



