648 
“ Progress ” from an 
[November, 
1. In many respects the scientific inquirer finds not 
change, but permanence, to be the manifest law of the uni- 
verse. The expression “ Constants of Nature ” has already 
become stereotyped. If we examine the atomic weights, or 
the specific gravities, or indeed generally the physical and the 
chemical properties of the different kinds of matter, we find 
them unchanging. From no fadt known, from no circum- 
stance suspedted, or even conceivable, have we ground for 
doubting that the attributes of pure iron, or gold, or sulphur, 
were in the slightest degree other ten million years ago 
than what they are at present, or than what they will be 
ten million years hence. Here then is permanence, not 
progress, on a vast scale and in matters of grave im- 
portance. 
But even in the world of life change is not universal. 
Species, indeed, have sprung into existence, and have passed 
again away, leaving merely their imprints in the “ great 
stone book.” But other forms which flourished in remote 
geological ages have not thus passed away, but still survive. 
To resist change, or the impulse to change, is therefore not 
per se a struggle against Nature. 
2. We have said that change, transformation, where it 
occurs, is often cyclical. Instances of such change are 
almost too common, too familiar to need or even to permit 
of especial mention. All the variations of the seasons, all 
the changes of climate which we experience when traversing 
the earth’s surface, are of this character. By going on we 
merely return to where we set out. But periodic change is 
the essence of individual development. The young animal 
passes through a series of changes, which may be described 
as a movement in the diredtion of perfedtion. It increases 
in size and strength ; its various organs are matured, and 
become capable of exercising their fundtions ; its individua- 
tion as compared with the outer world is complete, and 
then -? There follows a gradual decay in every respedt, 
as was expressed by the old moralists when they compared 
the life of a man to a day or to a year. Be it noted that 
when once maturity is reached in the life of the individual 
it becomes his objedt, if desirous to make the best of life, 
to resist, or at least to retard, that series of transformations 
— certainly not to accelerate or force them on — the last term 
of which is death. The judicious man, when once he has 
reached the end of his “ golden decade,” husbands his 
strength, avoids every outlay of vital force for purposes of 
small moment. Nay, we may go much further, though it 
