Laws of Nature based on assumption.

29

force of gravitation continues to act ten days hence as it has acted during all past experience, and if our formulæ express adequately all the conditions of its action, and if no other force, acting, it may be, periodically, shall interfere, then the sun will rise at the time to which we look forward. But each one of these suppositions is justified by belief and not by knowledge. The belief becomes confirmed day by day as that which was future becomes past. But the past in itself can give us no knowledge of the future. With regard to that we can to the end only have a belief; so that Faith lies at the basis of our confidence in natural law.

us.

As we reflect, difficulties still thicken round What we call 'a law' describes in its simplest form the general relation of phenomena so far as we have observed them. Practically, from the very nature of the case, we are able only to see a little, and that little for a little time; but for purposes of reasoning we assume that what we observe will be permanent, and inasmuch as the conditions and the field of our observation do not vary greatly, experience may justify the assumption as far as it goes, though still the assumption may be false; just as it is easy to imagine a circle so large that a small arc might

30

Signs of harmony in Nature

not be distinguishable from a straight line by any measurements which we could make. And further if we are at liberty to assume that what we call 'laws' are uniform for us and for the whole range of our possible experience, still they finally explain nothing. A 'law' has no virtue to shew its own constitution or beginning. A law can reveal nothing of the absolute nature of that which works according to it. So far from doing this, laws constrain us to ask more importunately, as we grow more sensible of their simplicity, how we can conceive of their origin? how we can conceive of that-however we call it—which they present to us in action? A law does not dispense with these questions but sharpens and reiterates them. If we follow out intently the movements of bodies and their vital transformations we shall look more intently than other men to that which binds phenomena together and guides present human life.

The idea of law leads directly to that of harmony. And at all times men have been profoundly impressed by the signs of a magnificent unity in the world. They have seemed to themselves to see these in every wide view of the material universe and of the general course and conditions of life. From age to age, as

and present conflict.

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knowledge has widened, it has appeared to great teachers to be more and more clear that there has been a progress in the physical world and in the moral world. The rapidity and confidence, for example, with which the theory of 'development' has been welcomed within our own time, a theory which has found acceptance out of all proportion to the direct value of the evidence by which it is supported, witness to the power of this tendency in man's interpretation of the phenomena of life. We do not at present inquire whether these signs of progress find their fulfilment. It is enough that they should commonly be held to be legible. The mystery of a far-off end, as it may be, towards which the universe is moving, crowns the mystery of creation and the mystery of law.

But side by side with the signs of an underlying or unattained unity in the world, out of which it appears to rise or towards which it appears to move, when it is regarded in its broad extent, there are also countless losses, interruptions, conflicts in the visible condition of things. To one observer the present spectacle of the races of men becomes a vision of despair, to another a preparation for a natural millennium. But whether our eyes are fixed on the present or the future the actual discord is often enough to banish the

32

The pathetic fallacy.'

thought of the promised harmony. It is not necessary to discuss in detail the character of these conflicting indications of truth and falsehood, of beauty and ugliness, goodness and cruelty, or how far the failure or sacrifice of fragments may be made to subserve to the well-being of the whole. Storms, earthquakes, eruptions on the one side, wars and passions on the other, proclaim the broad lesson of suffering and imperfection in the world, so far as our observation reaches, with alarming vividness. The very fact that some speculators in all ages have affirmed that the only adequate explanation of the origin of the present state of things is to be found in the antagonism of two rival powers wrought out on earth, is sufficient to shew the reality of this struggle between good and evil. However we may account for the beginning or for the continuance of it, the struggle is going on. This mystery again is one from which there is no

escape.

The struggle is going on without us and within us, in the world and in ourselves, and we partake in the whole struggle. This consideration brings into light a new mystery. That which has been called 'the pathetic fallacy' reveals, as I believe, one of the profoundest truths of being.

There is a life running through all creation in which we share. We severally think with a mind which is more or less in harmony with a universal mind. It is more than a mere metaphor to say that we have sympathy with Nature and Nature with us. And if we are startled to find that the action of the mind is connected with certain definite changes of matter as physiologists have established, we must remember that the reasonable conclusion from this fact is not that the mind is material, in the sense of being corruptible and transitory, but that matter is spiritual. For it shews that the one force exerted through matter of which we are conscious is such.

And what must be said of the future? What indications are there of the issue of this conflict which reaches through all being and all life? Must we suppose that things move on in a uniform course? or that they revolve in cycles? There is at least no ground in the being of things themselves to expect a progress, an advance from good to better, in nature or in history. The 'survival of the fittest' through conflict, in respect of the conditions of present physical existence, by no means assures us of the survival of the fittest absolutely, in respect of the highest capacities of human nature. If we find that we cling to the

W. G. L.

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