62 Scientific Intelligence. 



Now here a fact of surpassing importance presses itself on our 

 attention. The movements taking place in those distant bodies 

 are taking place inich Ht prevail here on earth, 



and » our solar system. The law of gravitation, as developed 

 by Newton, bears sway in all those distant worlds. In them 

 bodies attract each other with forces directlv as their masses and 

 inversely as the squares of their distances. There the laws of the 

 emission, absorption, and transmission of light are the same as 

 they are with us. There ignited hydrogen gives forth its three 

 rays, the same rays that it gives forth to us. In the uttermost 

 parts of the universe the law of definite combination, the numeri- 

 cal law, and the multiple law, stand good. Sodium absorbs its 

 two waves ■ v, and iron o-ives in the spectra 



its more than a hundred lines, more than a hundred silent but 

 convincing witnesses of the uniformity of the constitution of the 

 universe. There the number of vibrations that constitute a *■*! 

 of definite refrangibility is the same we have found it to be r 

 In the enormous heat of those central suns the dissociatio 

 molecules may be of a higher order than we can reach artifick. v , 

 but the law under which it takes pi ;l( . e ; s a continuation of the 

 law here. There, though the weight of a given mass of matt* 

 different from what it is with us, it is nevertheless determined 

 the law that determines here — the law of gravitation. There 

 energy is indestructible, and is measured as it is measured among 

 us, by work. Then is there any boundary that we can assign to 

 natural law— is it not omnipresent, universal ? 



Perhaps there is no exaggeration in the assertion— for there 

 seems abundant proof of its truth— that the light by which we 

 see some of those distant orbs has crossed through such a pro- 

 digious space that millions of years have transpired daring the 

 journey. Then the phenomena it brings to us are those that were 

 engendered in the beginning of the vast time so passed. What- 

 ever there is that is in harmony with facts now happening here, is 

 to us an unimpeachable evidence that the laws which were govern- 

 ing in those old ages have undergone no depreciation, but are 

 active as ever until now. Then shall I exaggerate if I say that 

 these laws are eternal in duration ? 



Infinite in influence, eternal in duration, what a magnificent 

 spectacle? In the resistless energy of the motions of the uni- 

 verse is there not omnipotence ? The Omnipotent, the Infinite, 

 the Eternal, to what do these attributes belong ? Shall a man 

 who stands forth to vindicate the majesty of such laws be blama- 

 ble in your sight ? Rather shall you not with him be over- 

 whelmed with a conception so stupendous? And yet let us not 

 forget that these eternal laws of nature are only the passing 

 thoughts of God. y P 8 



But grand as this is, there is something still grander. There is 

 another temple into which we have to pass, not rhar of the •> i-i'lo 

 but that of the invisible. We must persist in the invasion we 

 have made, in the revolution we have brought about in Physiol- 



