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light, we have what all the world calls light, brightness, colour ; and corre- 
sponding thereto in the language of Science, vibrations of the (ether, extent of 
the vibrations, and number of vibrations in a given time. Now in both these 
instances one set of names express facts (things made or caused to be) just 
as really as the other, but the two classes of facts are utterly diverse, and 
in essentially different categories. One kind (the former) may be called 
personal sensations, being proper to the individual, although universally 
experienced ; while the other is a class of facts external to the individual, 
and understood only by the intervention of modern physical research. 
Eesearches of that kind are made in departments of science which may be 
included under the general term Dynamics, and the facts and laws elicited, 
as involving the agency of physical force, may be called physical operations. 
The relation between the two classes of facts is such that the physical opera- 
tion has its analogue and consequent in a sensational fact ; but because the 
operations and the consequences are of totally different qualities, there 
exists no human knowledge or means of inquiry by which it could be anti- 
cipated that such consequences would follow such operations. For instance, 
it is out of the limits of human understanding to comprehend why the 
sensation of sound results from vibrations of the air, or the sensation of 
colour, as a red colour, from vibrations of the aether. The relation being one 
of mere antecedence and consequence, and not such a relation between cause 
and effect as those we have means of reasoning about, we can only say of it 
that it exists by the immediate volition of the Author of our being and of 
our sensations. 
Exactly the same considerations are applicable to the fact that to sense the 
earth is motionless. Physical science has taught us that the earth turns 
round its axis in a day, and revolves round the sun in a year, and that the 
former motion is maintained by the vis inertias of the matter of the earth, and 
the latter by the same quality combined with the gravitating attraction of 
the sun. But nothing in physics can give a reason for the sensational fact 
that we are incapable of perceiving motion only so far as it is relative to our 
own motion, and, in consequence, are incapable of perceiving our own motion. 
Of the reality of the fact any one may convince himself each time he travels 
on a railway. 
Supposing, now, we should be speaking of sound, or colour, and a man of 
science should turn round upon us and say that we are under a mistake, 
there being no such things as sound and colour, but only vibrations of certain 
media, we should judge him, and rightly, to be a very foolish person. Of 
exactly the same folly they are guilty who attribute fault or imperfection to 
Scripture because it speaks of the fixity of the earth, which is a sensational 
fact in the same category, and in the same manner real, as sound and 
colour. 
From those considerations it would appear that Physical Science and the 
Science of Scripture stand apart from each other in respect to the qualities 
of the facts they are concerned with. In the former the Book of Nature is 
studied by means of observation and experiment, combined with mathe- 
VOL. IX. M 
