CRE.ATION BY LAW. 279 



one foot* No other substance known to Man, is 

 to be compared with this as a furnisher of Force, 

 This is its function in the world. It is a func- 

 tion related to Man's mechanical and inventive 

 powers, and coal has been rendered capable of 

 discharging this function by processes of prepara- 

 tion which began millions of ages before Man 

 was born. But these External Correlations are a 

 result arising by way of natural consequence out 

 of certain physical causes working to order, that 

 is to say, out of Internal Correlations of Growth 

 between Solar Heat and Vegetable Structure, and 

 aeain between these and the causes which occa- 

 sion interchange between sea and land. No ex- 

 planation so definite as this can be given of the 

 method in which Vital Forces are made to evolve 

 a new Form of Life. But even if such explanation 

 could be given, it would render no account at all 

 of the fittings of that Form into the outward re- 

 quirements of its life. These are Correlations which 

 in their very nature belong to Mind, are the work 

 of Mind, and are intelligible only in the light of 

 Mind. 



* The Coal Question.— W. S. Jevons, 1865. 



