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the Creator and Preserver seems to have willed that nature 
shall be beautiful; impressing universal mind, when un- 
endowed with reason great enough for its appointed work, 
with conclusions from His own reasoning communicated to 
His creatures under the name of instinct — one acts blindly 
upon a conclusion, the other knows why, having worked it 
out. 
In taking this view of the creation and preservation of the 
universe, there will arise no misconception if we call force 
physical by reason of the material work done by it ; and 
even if we speak of it as being inherent in matter, since it is 
from one atom of matter to another that force must be 
measured. And we shall understand both from the moral 
nature of force and from what has been said with respect to 
the relation of place that force operates through indefinite 
distances ; now, as it is impossible to imagine the moral 
command of God to be bounded by any limit, we can dispense 
with the necessity for filling up the inter-planetary spaces 
with an all-pervading ether in deference to the allegation that 
“ matter cannot act where it is not . ” We cannot allege the 
same thing of mind; and if we could, the mind of God would 
be everywhere in space. Hor can we imagine matter, as a 
creation of mind, to be capable of any performance impossible 
to the mind itself from which it was derived. 
In conducting this argument no allusion has been made to 
repulsion , for the simple reason that no such force is required. 
What we call repulsion is not a force, but a fact due to attrac- 
tion. A universal attraction of a material caloric or a 
material electricity among the atoms of matter is quite 
enough to separate them. It will remain for future efforts 
to trace these principles into special sciences ; by affording 
which, and scattering light upon details, they will, as I have 
spent some years in ascertaining, exhibit the best proof 
possible of their own truthful derivation. To simplify a 
science is a sure way to advance it ; but this does not mean 
either to cripple it, or to adopt into it mere mechanical 
expedients ; while to advance the physical sciences as a 
whole demands the discovery of principles claimed by them 
all in common. If this system be true, it will, when the 
attempt is made, merge more or less in one another what 
are now regarded as distinct specialities; and so much 
I can promise for it that it can do. 
In conclusion : this system of physics, although worked 
out on physical principles, conforms to the teaching of 
Revelation. The First Great Cause, who provided that 
word-pictures of His own Character should be displayed 
