that universe; and are not less true than the universe itself; they, indeed, argue a strong constitution which, projecting its force onwards, outlasts all distempered infection of present things, enters

"The springs of life, the depths of awe,

And finds the law within the law."

Lord Tennyson, The Two Voices.

4

"To sight without reason the universe appears to be filled with light-except, of course, in places surrounded by opaque bodies."1 Reason shows that the sensation of light, or brightness, is our own, does not exist outside organization. The sensations of colour, of sound, of fragrance, of taste, of touch, are effects; we, ourselves, by the peculiarities of our organism, translate what we conceive to be forces, motions, substances, into the pleasures and pains, the art and science, the work and rest, of human existence. These things, though not all material, have an objective existence in as complete a sense as matter has: that is, they are something which exists independently of our senses. Now, matter and energy-whence come all the forms of force-we find, by innumerable experiments, cannot be destroyed; nor can we create the slightest quantity. The quantity which is in the universe remains unalterable, except by the Almighty; but the forms of matter, and the forms of force, we do alter every day and hour of our lives. Our own bodies, our sensations, thoughts, emotions, change continually; but the essence of ourselves is unchangeable-the real substance and energy are everlasting. This is that of which our inner man is

1 "Recent Advances in Physical Science," lect. xiv., "Force," Professor S. G. Tait, M.A.

conscious, by which we know ourselves to be the same as when a boy; and, that is not all; in those powers by which we are ever and ever converting present perceptions into hopes and assurances of future realities, we have intuitions of immortality. They are of the Eternal, and come from Him as an indestructible everlastingness, the centre of the convertibleness which designates us for the future, and gives grandeur to our being, as if God said

"Whatever natures be

To mortal men distributed, those natures come from Me;
Intellect, skill, enlightenment, self-control,

Truthfulness, equability, and grief or joy of soul,

And birth and death, and fearfulness, and fearlessness and shame,
And honour, and sweet harmlessness, and peace which is the same
Whate'er befalls, and mirth and tears, and piety and thrift,
And wish to give, and will to help,—all cometh of My gift ! ”
Edwin Arnold, M.A., The Song Celestial,

Translated from the Sanskrit.

Physical Science is the knowledge of relations between natural phenomena and their physical antecedents." This does not contain all that we wish to know, but teaches that not rest, not equilibrium, not stability of position; but ceaseless activity, restless conflict of forces, continual fighting everywhere, is the order of nature; not only in the near, but the far-off; as well in the atoms, so small that we never see them; as in the stars, whose magnitude awes us. The physical is continually passing into the sentient; the sentient, into thought; thought, into emotion; and by this thought and emotion we have a sense, or intuition, that Spirit enters matter, and the Eternal clothes Himself with the temporal. The waves of ether, measurable yet inconceivably minute, impinge on the optic nerve, and

that impression is by the brain converted into our sense
of light.
Men of science call this, "a fact, certainly
true." By the same kind of impingement, pictures of the
universe are formed on the retina of the eye. These,
when conveyed to the brain, are converted by mental
power into a sense of Divinity, sacred love, grateful
worship, and conviction that so grand a scheme involves
a glorious future. These are amongst the truest,
grandest, and most ennobling of facts of human ex-
perience. Every physical, vital, mental, moral process
has its own sphere of operations; always changing, and
dying, only for renewal.

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways."

The ancients, the patriarchs and prophets, saw this; and their conceptions of the universe, its far-reaching purposes, and its manifestation of the Almighty, the Ever-Living One, became, by convertibility of forces, anticipations of scientific research:

"A healthful hunger for the great idea,

The beauty and the blessedness of life."

J. Ingelow, Gladys and her Island.

RESEARCH VI.

THE CONSERVATION

AND DISSIPATION OF ENERGY

AS PREPARATION FOR THE LIFE TO COME.

“In the interpretation of Nature there is no more mortal sin than the wilful confounding of her distinctions. . . . When we kneel down and put our ear to Nature to listen to her divine music, we must try to catch not only every note, but every tone and semitone and overtone, and all the transitions between them, if we desire to enjoy and to understand her harmonies to the full.”—The DUKE OF ARGYLL, on Professor Huxley and Canon Liddon, The Nineteenth Century, March, 1887.

"Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie :
A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby."
GEORGE HERBERT, The Church Porch.

WE are in a world of infinite complexity, struggling to understand it, but our powers are feeble, and much reserve, much caution are needed, lest we lose our reverence in a muddy torrent of bad physics and of metaphysics, or in a fog of ignorant theology. In the pulpit, stupid nescience is not allowed; nor with the positivist, can we admit that human knowledge is pure emptiness; nor with the unbeliever, that Christendom's hope of heaven is "a millennium of moonshine." We will look forward to, and endeavour to establish, those higher interpretations of things, which are already coming into view, preparing us for the science of the

future, and bidding every noble worker be of good cheer.

"Charmed and compelled thou climb'st from height to height,
And round thy path the world shines wondrous bright;

Time, space, and size, and distance, cease to be,

And every step is fresh infinity."

Translated from Goethe, by J. A. S., Spectator, September 24, 1870.

recesses.

It required the strong fire of many men's genius, and the patient labours of several generations, to forge and finish weapons that would open a way through all obstacles into the citadel of Nature, and her most secret Heraclitus, who was in renown at Ephesus, B.C. 500, declared that fire was the great cause, and that all things were in a perpetual flux. Democritus, born B.C. 470, originated the doctrine of atoms; and Aristotle had a glimpse, or an idea, of some universal medium. The ancients were not ignorant of all the great principles of the universe; but, having few scientific instruments, were unable to raise accurate scientific conceptions. They possessed great genius and intellectual power, knowing many things which show that the universe has more than one point of view, and contains many more things than it expresses. Some moderns forget that weights, measures, and standard clocks do not reveal all the deeply seated and vast enfolding principles of the universe. Others greatly enter the spirit and design of Nature; discover many and valuable relations between the properties of matter; ascertain the laws of energy, the great principle of conservation; and the fact that the mechanical energy of the universe is being transformed into universally diffused heat, so that, unless there is a compensating influence, it will at length cease to be a fit abode for living beings.