STUDY XX.

VARIETY IN NATURE.

"See God's hand in all things. . . . believe that things are not set in such inevitable order, but that God often changeth it according as He sees fit.”— GEORGE HERBERT.

"To a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the Infinite may be seen."

THE general invariability of natural law must be taken as a fundamental fact without which no scientific interpretation of nature is possible. The same things will always happen under the same conditions. If gravitation acted sometimes at one angle, sometimes at another, instead of pulling in a straight line, the cry of " stand from under," would be a delusion and a snare. The most hidden and unaccountable movements, the fitful agitations of the weather, the waving of every leaf, the number of drops in a shower, and the shaping of clouds, are by a rule so wise and strong, that error, chance, or mischance, can never enter.

This natural uniformity is sometimes made to appear-not an order laid down by Infinite Wisdom for beneficent and effectual rule, but a chain of fate, blindly, rigorously, invariably binding all things with iron links of necessity. We agree with Mr. John Stuart Mill, that next to the greatness of the cosmic forces, the quality which most forcibly strikes one is their recklessness-they go straight to their end without regarding what or whom they crush on the road; but enlarged consideration shows that this seeming recklessness is beneficent, by calling upon intelligence to provide safeguards and remedies. It, in fact, enables the will of man to count for something in the world.

The uniformity of nature and the invariability of law are

not rightly understood, nor well interpreted, unless we know and act upon them as a platform for infinite variety. Laws are conservative, yet the untiring agents of change; and the ever-varying conditions of time, place, and material combination, render it certain that no two series of phenomena can ever be absolutely the same. If, on the one side, a man maintains law is uniform and universal; he may be met, on the other side, with the fact that it incloses infinite diversity and a series of surprises. Out of darkness we extract most brilliant light, and white light is analysed into all the colours. Who, looking at the field in winter, would predict, were it not for experience, the fruitfulness and glow of harvest? What man is able to prophecy why and how the caterpillar has a resurrection life of winged beauty? why and how the seed attains development in herb and flower, in shrub or tree? Nature is not one-sided, but all-sided. The student of physics carries the light of his private intelligence only a little way, and on one line, into the dark by which knowledge is surrounded; but nature faces us on all sides, carries on her work centripetally, centrifugally, and circularly, ever extending into wider regions of the all-embracing. What seem the wildest meteors of our imagination are sometimes proved to be brightest flashes of thought-with counterpart in the world of fact. Intellectual penetration of surrounding darkness, depends not so much on method as on spiritual insight; and the force carrying furthest is that of genius in the investigator. Our experiments constitute a body, of which purified intuitions are, as it were, the soul; "we can also magnify, diminish, qualify, and combine experiences, so as to render them fit for purposes entirely new." 1

This view of diversity renders it possible to establish conformity between the Scientific idea of Law, and the Theological idea of Will-Will exerting itself with a fixed purpose according to a predetermined plan. Of that plan, Revelation furnishes the moral scheme; and Science seeks to unravel the

physical process. Divine actions are based on unerring knowledge as to the future; and creation, begun upon a plan, is sustained and governed by an all-embracing Providence. 1 "Scientific Materialism :" John Tyndall, LL.D., F.R.S.

It is evident that if Foreknowledge be Infinite, if Power be Almighty, and if Goodness be All-pervading, the Law or Rule will be so far perfect as to render any subsequent correction unnecessary-unless the action of free beings necessitates interference: all-provident and infinite Wisdom neither requiring nor allowing break or irregularity. Scientific men are so sure that the universe is the work of Intelligence, to be understood by intelligence, that they make their study an honest endeavour to unravel the laws which Wisdom has impressed upon matter. They find, or seem to find, a reason and purpose somewhat similar to, but infinitely greater than that which human intelligence could project, weaving the weft and warp of history with idea. The initial passage from the ideal to the actual being that moment of interference in which Nature began to realise and express Supreme Thought. This Thought embraces in one vast scheme all worlds, all time, and everything contained in them; and insures the liberty and responsibility of intelligent creatures by providing that means for interference and those agencies for readjustment which the good and evil wills of free intelligent responsible beings render necessary.

Our conception that natural uniformity is a chamber in which Divine Will displays variety, may be carried further. The unexpected conclusion has been drawn from certain recondite investigations that more than three dimensions in space are possible. In the career of the solar system we may be passing to regions in which space has not precisely the same proportions that we find here-where something will necessitate "a fourth dimension form of matter" for adaptation to the new locality. Nature, such as we know, possibly does not include all times, places and things. That which now concerns men, forming the natural parts of their experiences and analogies, may be but a small part of the Almighty's infinite dominions. Hence, when we are told of natural uniformity and invariability of law, we accept the statement, but confine it within the limits of our own experience; for that which seems utterly impossible here may be natural parts of other experiences and analogies. Consequently, that pre-arrangement which provides for every eclipse

of the sun, and occultation of a star; and which the government of free, intelligent, and responsible creatures renders necessary; may weave into the world a loving, spiritual, elevating process by which purity, now chiefly ideal even in the holiest of men, shall ultimately become actual in all. If so, Inspiration, Prophecy, Miracles, Spirit-power, are as much parts of nature as is material and mechanical order.

Such a scheme of government, being the highest our minds can conceive, seems to be that of a great and good God. If, further, we think that free responsible creatures, forming an essential part in such government, are the most perfect creations of the Infinite, it becomes absolutely requisite for their happy existence, righteous and effective government, that freedom shall weave the web of existence and the Divine plan with a wonderful variety surpassing finite understanding.

We think the philosophical argument may be verified by experiment. As a beginning for examples of variety underlying "Natural Uniformity," and an illustration of the infinitely elastic medium enclosing what is called "Invariability of Law," take Matter.

It escapes not careful notice that the sixty-four various kinds of elements, though of a rigidly accurate mechanical base, geometrical figures lying at the bottom of the whole, are adapted to an infinity of complicate and various purposes. The dense elements are pervaded by those less dense. All solid bodies are penetrated by moisture, or by the gases, or by the imponderables-light, heat, electricity, magnetism. Fluids are pervious by fluids, and gases are traversed by gases. Sometimes the path is traced by expansion, by fusion, by active chemical affinities. At other times, the path is secret, and the manner of transit remains a mystery. The elements, being impelled, aided by electric and other forces, produce, what has been called, "Electro-vegetation ;" and advance to the mysteries of vegetable and animal life. Hence, the world, as a material organism, might be reduced into sixtyfour kinds of elementary atoms; and possibly, these atoms, though we cannot convert any one into another, were once in one formless diffused substance.

Now we arrive at a startling result. So far from the ele

ments being somewhat inadequate, or all used in the many singularly contrasted substances and results exhibited in nature; only a few are largely present. As a mass, the outside contents of the globe consist of few elements: silicon, iron, aluminium, calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, hydrogen, oxygen, chlorine, and carbon. Animals and vegetables are varieties, chiefly of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen. The broad ocean, throughout its vast bulk, is narrowed to two elements-oxygen and hydrogen; other substances are indeed a small part of it. Considering that the human body, progressing to suitable form and fit use for the genius of Shakespeare, the imagination of Milton, and the piety of Wicklyff, is resolvable into a few elementary atoms; we discern that the band encircling natural uniformity and invariability of law is infinitely elastic.

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It might be thought that the mathematical basis of the forms of matter necessitated such invariable procedure, and production of like by like, that the whole future could be calculated and formulated: whereas, Mr Babbage, in his ninth "Bridgewater Treatise," shows that we have no right to expect such invariable and fixed process. Deviations of the most startling character may co-exist with controlling law. A calculating machine can be constructed which, after working in a correct and orderly manner up to 100,000,001, then leaps; and, instead of continuing the chain of numbers unbroken, goes at once to 100,010,002, “The law which seemed at first to govern the series failed at the hundred million and second term. This term is larger than we expected by 10,000." The law thus changes :

"For a hundred or even for a thousand terms, they continued to follow the new law relating to the triangular numbers; but after watching them for 2761 terms, we find this law fails of the 2762nd term. If we continue to observe, we shall discover another law then coming into action, which also is dependent, but in a different manner, on triangular numbers, called