94 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
but an assemblage of water-drops, atmospheric air, elec¬ 
tricity, and ammonia ? That same water, air, electricity, 
and ammonia, fall in a shower, and are each absorbed by 
the plant; and, to-morrow, the very same elements, 
which appeared in the heavens like a golden car for the 
sun, or a group of cherubim winging upward through 
the ether, are seen in the form of a lowly violet, the 
elements that formed the cloud lend softness to its purple 
tint, freshness to its grateful odour, and healthy-greenness 
to its heart-shaped leaves; how, then, could the cloud 
which yesterday floated in the blue heaven, and to-day 
forms the tissues of a plant, be said to have any existence 
but as a letter in an alphabet which Nature is everlast¬ 
ingly weaving into prose syllables or poetic rhymes ? 
But there is a higher fact revealed in this philosophy, 
namely, that the laws which we perceive working as 
instruments of power are the laws of reason, and are as 
truly in harmony with the human mind as with that 
higher mind from which all things spring. So true is 
it, that naturalists have frequently deduced natural laws 
from reason alone, and have afterwards discovered them 
really existing in Nature. Bronx the fact that bodies 
mutually attract each other, Newton deduced, that as 
the distances of bodies increase, their mutual attraction 
decreases; and that an effect proceeding from one point 
becomes weaker in proportion as the square of distances 
increases. Both these conclusions have been verified by 
appeals to Nature, and the true laws of planetary motions 
have thus been traced out as fruits of human reason 
resting on its own strength alone, and asserting that 
such and such must le , because such and such already 
