ORIGIN OF LIFE. 5 
tendencies of things are noted and grouped ; whilst 
philosophers, using the knowledge thus gained, seek 
to trace back the progress of events and show how 
this complex world has gradually been derived from 
a world of more and more simple composition. We 
are taken back in imagination even much further. 
We are referred to a primal haze or nebula—as the 
gigantic germ of a future Universe. This was the 
conception of Kant and of Laplace. 
But whether we follow the philosopher in his bold 
speculations concerning the past, or listen to the 
biologist making his predictions as to the future 
stages which the germ of a given animal will pass 
through in the progress of its evolution—in each case 
the ‘uniformity of nature’ is tacitly assumed. This 
assumption underlies almost all our thoughts and 
actions, even in every-day life. And without such a 
belief regarding the succession of events science would 
be impossible—the very idea of it, in fact, could never 
have arisen. In its absence we could neither fathom 
the past nor illumine the future. As Mr. Mill said,*—- 
“Were we to suppose (what it is perfectly possible to 
imagine) that the present order of the universe were 
brought to an end, and that a chaos succeeded in 
which there was no fixed succession of events, and 
the past gave no assurance of the future, if a human 
* Syst. of Logic, 6th edit. vol. ii. p. 98. 
