34 
impossible for Science to find the cause in Nature ; for even 
if the functions of life were proved to be connected with 
magnetism or any other physical energy, that would simply 
indicate, as in the case of sensation, the antecedent to the 
effect, not the reason of the sequence. And that life is an 
ultimate fact in Nature is confirmed by the researches of 
Science, which can discover no origin of life except living 
matter itself. And all we can say as to the relation of cause 
and effect in this sphere of Nature is that the phenomena of 
life are the results of continuity, but since it is the very 
characteristic of living matter to call physical energies into 
active operation, and to spread as a fire spreads from the 
smallest initial cause to an extent unlimited, this whole sphere 
is one which lies entirely beyond the range of exact Science. 
26. But though Science in its highest form, as determining 
exact sequences of cause and effect, can have no place here, yet 
in its lower office of investigating by observation the consecutive 
order of phenomena, it has more trustworthy guidance here 
than in inorganic Nature. As one characteristic of living 
matter is that it is the subject of cyclical changes, the question 
of consecutive order necessarily belongs, to some extent, to 
all scientific researches into organic existences. And in the 
cyclical changes of all these existences there is a phenomenal 
law of order, originally observed by the poet Goethe, and in 
modern times more distinctly defined in what is known as the 
Law of Evolution, the truth of which may be tested almost 
without limit, and which holds, in the organic world, nearly the 
same position as the law of gravitation holds in the inorganic. 
And this law is so entirely in accordance with the principles of 
the contemporaneous order observed in Nature, that though no 
doubt it is impossible to prove its universal truth, or even to 
verify it as a dynamical law may be verified, yet it commends 
itself with almost irresistible force to the scientific mind as a 
general expression of the order of Nature, and to the religious 
mind also (as it seems to me) as having its basis in Him Who 
is everywhere the Author of the same order. I am convinced 
that the more the law itself is carefully studied and clearly 
understood (and its study, apart from the obscure and repul- 
sive terminology which has been introduced into this branch 
of Science, is as interesting as it is instructive), the less liable 
will the mind be to be carried away by those premature and 
unscientific conclusions which, by the world in general, are 
often confounded with the law itself. 
27. The law, as it is observed in individual organisms, 
where we can trace it throughout the whole process, is (we 
must remember) simply the order of the changes through 
