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spontaneity mingling with it, whether as creating or directing 
it. They who assume, with “ the foolish body ” mentioned in 
the Psalms, that there is no God — i.e., no such God as 
Christians believe in — can, of course, allow to Him neither 
spontaneity nor any other attribute. But it is easier to make 
such an assumption than to prove it. 
6. The law of conservation of energy, as recently established, 
is but a further instance of the reign of law to which the 
physical universe has been long known to be subject. Under 
the name of conservation of vis viva , it has been known, in a 
more restricted form, since the time of Newton ; only it was 
supposed that in cases of collision vis viva was irrecoverably 
lost. Now it is believed that it survives in the form of heat. 
But how does this make it more difficult to believe in the 
action of spontaneity on the part of the Divine Being than it 
was before ? We believed in the uniformity of the course of 
nature before this additional instance of it was brought under 
our notice ; and the general uniformity of nature is that which 
is supposed by some to militate against the supposition that a 
Deity intervenes. “ Has this uniformity ever been broken ? ” 
asks Dr. Tyndall, in his Birmingham Address. And he answers, 
“Not to the knowledge of science.” This is, of course, a suf- 
ficient answer in Dr. Tyndall's mind, inasmuch as he acknow- 
ledges no other teacher than science. But even if science were 
our only teacher, its ignorance on this point would be no argu- 
ment. That science does not know of any breach in the uni- 
formity of nature, is a circumstance which surely does not 
prove that there has never been such. Science, at best, can 
reach no further than to the existing universe. It can tell us 
nothing about its commencement. It cannot even tell us 
whether it had a commencement or no. It will probably be 
admitted that the chief indications to be found on this subject 
are from geology, and these point to a commencement, at all 
events, of terrestrial life, in that the farther we go back in 
time the lower and fewer are the organisations found iu a 
fossil state. And what greater break in the uniformity of 
Nature can be well imagined than the commencement of life ? 
If terrestrial life had a commencement, there can be no great 
difficulty in believing that the whole universe had a commence- 
ment also. 
7. It has been well observed by Mr. Eliot Howard, in a 
paper read before this Society on December 3, 1877, that 
science and faith part company at the first verse of the first 
chapter of Genesis, inasmuch as science knows nothing of a 
“ beginning.” Here another teacher than science enters upon 
the scene, and vouchsafes to us instruction in matters with 
