LIVING GOD OP LIVING NATURE FROM THE SCIENCE SIDE. 293 



and you will see them approach faster as they get near. Mean- 

 while we go on ])lunclering and trade-unionising against all practical 

 knowledge of how to do or to improve anything that is wanted ; 

 as if the only practical rule of life were to get the most pay for 

 the least and worst work that can be sold for more than it cost 

 the doer of it, and yet talking of " Labour " as the only potentate 

 worth acknowledging. Had we not better begin again at the 

 other end, as some prime Author and Maintainer of the universe 

 did, who not only made His own laws but enforces them every 

 minute 1 



As I once wrote for you a paper on " Beauty of Nature"^ " with 

 the same general object as the preceding one of Dr. Eeale's, I 

 invite your members to reflect what answer they or anybody can 

 give to the question suggested just now by a short walk, in this 

 suddenly fine afternoon, in the garden, — What made merely 

 promiscuously planted oak trees look so beautiful Certainly not 

 I, some thirty years ago, when I planted most of them at random ; 

 and certainly not my gardener. But I and the persons with me all 

 exclaimed at it, and then it came into my head to ask this question, 

 for any of your members to answer. 



And reverting to universal gravity, let me tell those who do not 

 know, that Newton's friend Paley reminded the readers of his 

 admirable book called Natural Theology^ which is better reading 

 than any scientific one that I know or ever knew, that he asked 

 therein how gravity can be accounted for ; and that he anticipated 

 the erroneous dictum of a well-known atheistic philosopher, that the 

 law of gravity is only " the expression of a necessary law of space." 

 It is nothing of the kind until he establishes the new theory that 

 gravity is a mere emanation of straight lines of attraction in every 

 direction. 



Communication by Rev. J. Rate, M.A. : — 



I am much interested in Professor Beale's paper, and am glad 

 that it endorses Lord Kelvin's statement, viz. : — that " Modern 

 Biologists are coming once more to a firm acceptance of something j 

 and that is — a Vital principle." 



Trans. Vict. Inst., vol. xxi (1887-88). 



