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self-denial, and boundless enthusiasm, men have sought to 
wrest from Nature her inmost mysteries, and are just beginning 
to learn that the real secrets of the universe are not to be 
dragged forth by the retort, the scalpel, and the microscope. If 
in this blind and fervid impulse to solve “the riddle of the 
painful earth,” men have sometimes reached the despairing 
conclusion that probably there is no riddle after all, or that, if 
there be, it is not worth our while to try and solve it, who shall 
wonder ? There will always be those who, like Faust's 
hamulus,” dig with eager hands for treasure, and rejoice if 
they come upon an earthworm. Only to the chiefs of our race 
is it given to use “ the hammer for building”; but any appren- 
tice can wield “ the torch for burning.” 
Surely, however, it is no mean thing if we at last learn — even 
though it be by the painful process of beating our heads against 
the walls — that the province of Science, though a mighty and 
a noble domain, is one limited by the strictest confines. No 
experience will be too dearly purchased, if we thereby convince 
ourselves that Science alone is powerless to satisfy the wants of 
human nature. Modern science has long been trying to esta- 
blish a “ law of necessity” to embrace all things natural, the 
quick as well as the dead ; and there are not wanting those who 
would place the things which we somewhat misleadingly call 
sw^^-natural, under the heel of the same iron despotism. 
The free human soul, however, imperiously demands freedom, 
not only for itself, but still more for the power by which the 
universe is governed. Man is not a dead machine, nor is the 
universe a lifeless system ; and the formulm of the schools are 
of no avail as opposed to the triumphant instincts of humanity. 
Nor is this freedom in any way incompatible with the theory 
that the universe is strictly governed by law, and even by 
unvarying law. That every event in nature, every event in 
human life, is strictly the result of an antecedent event, as its 
cause, and gives rise to some succeeding event, as its effect, may 
be most fully admitted without any involved or implied denial 
of freedom. The freedom of a spiritual being of known 
character and nature must be as strictly reducible to law as the 
automatic working of a machine — though the law of its action 
may be infinitely more difficult to discover. We may protest, 
therefore, against the assumption by which Prof. Draper’s 
remarkable work on “ The Conflict between Religion and 
Science ” is saturated, and its conclusions vitiated — the assump- 
tion, namely, that “ Science ” demands that the world shall be 
governed by immutable laws, whilst “ Religion” demands that 
it shall be controlled by “ discontinuous, disconnected, arbitrary 
