vi rMEFACE. 



of the entire field at a glance, in order to give vividness, 

 sharpness, locality, and permanence to the thoughts and 

 images floating in his mind. 



There are also other considerations which have been 

 prominently before the mind of the author in drawing up 

 some of the following chapters for publication. He can 

 not resist the conviction that Nature is intended as a rev- 

 elation of God to all intelligences. If it be so intended, 

 Nature must be capable of fulfilling the offices of a rev- 

 elation, and a knowledge of her phenomena and laws must 

 afford the data of a theology. Despite the skepticism of 

 a certain school of recent writers, the phenomena of the 

 universe continue to inspire in the soul of man emotions 

 of religious reverence and worship. To the mass of mind, 

 as to the intelligence of Socrates, and Plato, and Kepler, 

 and Newton, and Galen, and Paley, and Buckland, the 

 order of the Cosmos proclaims an Infinite Intelligence. 

 The author has no fear that the ultimate analysis of the 

 grounds of this belief will result in showing them unreal 

 or unsatisfactory to a critical philosophy. Imbued with 

 such convictions, the author has made no effort to dis- 

 guise them. He has not, however, entered into any for- 

 mal attempt to set forth the relations of science to the 

 system of Christian faith, though the way has been fre- 

 quently opened. He hopes at no distant day to resume 

 the consideration of these subjects. Besides the argu- 

 ments made familiar by Paley, Whewell, and other writ- 

 ers on Natural Theology — to which, indeed, fourfold 

 strength is added by the later developments of the phys- 

 ical sciences — there are new topics thrust before the 

 world by the current of modern thought,, upon which a 

 flood of light is thrown by late discoveries, if, in fact, 



