Why one cell should absorb, why another that seems exactly to resemble it should assimilate, why a third should secrete, why a fourth should prepare the productive germs, and why of two germs that seem exactly similar, one should be developed into the meanest zoophite and another into the complex fabric of man-are questions that physiology is not likely ever to answer.' While freely admitting that mysteries, which will probably for ever baffle human intellect, shroud many exquisitely beautiful processes, we see enough to constrain us to acknowledge a community of structural arrangement, and to accept the doctrine of an all-pervading unity in life-fabrics.

Permeating these, are heat, light, electricity, magnetism, as correlated forces; and the discovery that these different physical forces are mutually convertible—that they can pass into one another-or, in other words, that all force is the same force-has placed in an entirely new light the unity of the globe. These forces are so simple, yet so powerful in their combinations, and are so universal in their diffusion, as they connect the inorganic and organic fabrics, that the doctrine of unity is rising with a magnificence which surpasses that even of endless worlds in harmony, because they bear us on more directly to the mind of God. "And even if we cannot certainly identify force in all its forms with the direct energies of one omnipresent and all-pervading Will, it is at least in the highest degree unphilosophical to assume the contrary, to speak or to think as if the forces of nature were

* "Animal Physiology," p. 592. Bohn's Edition.

either independent of or even separate from the Creator's power.' r."*

While welcoming evidence of the correlation of forces, and while admitting, to a certain extent, that matter and force are inseparable, and that they have some intimate connection with the animal frame, we deny that they either sustain or subordinate mental force, or that they are "the all" of spiritual life. There are facts in mental history which a purely materialistic philosophy can never explain. One of these is a belief in the immortality of the soul. Another is that we are free agents, and are morally responsible for our actions; and intimately connected with these two is the idea of a God almighty and omnipresent. Matter and force, however inseparable, cannot in their very nature produce such moral results as these. Vital force is essentially different from purely physical force. "It is one thing to admit that the vital and active energies of the living being are carried on by means of the forces of inorganic nature, and another thing to assert that any mere combination of these forces produces life."† Vital properties are superadded; they are not permanent. They are removed at death, and do not reappear. "The material properties belong to the matter, whether living or dead," says Dr. Beale, "but where are the vital properties in the dead material? If physicists and chemists would only restore to life that which is dead, we should all believe in the doctrine they

* "Reign of Law," by the Duke of Argyll, p. 122.

See a very able article in the "British and Foreign Evangelical Review," July, 1872, by Professor J. R. Leebody.

teach."*

As we are not discussing materialism, we follow its conclusions no farther. We accept almost all that it teaches physiologically regarding the connections of the organic and inorganic, and the exposition which it gives of the unity of our globe and of its life-forms; but we refuse to stop here, because there is a psychological or spiritual sphere in which the phenomena of matter and force are comparatively subordinate. Psychology has its own laws, and recognizes a higher than a materialistic government. We rise from the lower unity to that which is wider, more lasting, and more sublime. In the intimate connection of the material with the intellectual and spiritual-of the outer world with the "world within "—there is a unity of profounder interest than that which the physical universe alone exhibits, and that interest is intensified when we separate ourselves altogether from what is external, and expatiate with freedom in the domain of the invisible. As we ascend from the lowest instinct in animals to reason and faith in man, we infer the legitimacy of still higher advances. We cannot stop with man as the terminating link in the series of rational and accountable intelligences; we cannot admit that his horizon is the limit of moral agency in the universe. Analogy, as our guide, gives to us an upward impulse which we cannot check without doing violence alike to the expositions of science and Scripture. What is dim to reason, Revelation makes distinct. The Bible guides us with steady step into the invisible, and it describes existences in it with as much historical definite

* "Protoplasm, or Life, Matter, and Mind,” p. 27.

ness as when it places before us facts which lie within the easy apprehension of the senses. "Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers" are described as distinct representatives of spiritual intelligences, or celestial dignities, or the higher and highest essences of the universe; order reigns there, unity prevails, as with one mind they obey God. A system of beings is revealed to us, vast, mysterious, yet harmonious, of which science can take no cognizance. The sun is not its centre, nor is Alcyone. The Pleiades do not reflect its splendor, nor can astronomers define its outline or estimate its glories. Its "thrones and dominions" rise illimitably until they approach the omnipotent Adonai, in whom and by whom and for whom they all consist.

When astronomy, geology, chemistry, physiology, and other correlated sciences, are thus associated with what the Bible reveals in the unseen, we may safely rest in the light of that Word which reveals a glorious Being, who sees the end from the beginning, and who has in matchless wisdom first instituted the design to which every fact, and law, and event has been throughout conformed, and has given to all his works a unity consonant with that of his own attributes.

CHAPTER V.

SCRIPTURE ALLUSIONS COINCIDENT WITH FACTS IN NATURAL SCIENCE.

The Bible frequently makes allusions to the laws of nature, their operations and effects. But such allusions are often so wrapped in the folds of the peculiar and graceful drapery with which its language is occasionally clothed, that the meaning, though peeping out from its thin covering all the while, yet lies in some sense concealed until the lights and revelations of science are thrown upon it; then it bursts out and strikes us with exquisite force and beauty.-LIEUTENANT MAURY.

THERE are allusions in the Bible, written centuries. before astronomy had given a glimpse of the structure of the universe, or geology had revealed the evolutions of the globe, or chemistry any of its constituent elements, which have only of late become intelligible and been recognized as perfectly exact. The coincidences of Bible statements with facts in natural science are so remarkable, and comparatively so numerous, that, when combined, they constitute a powerful argument for the reliableness of the whole book. Although the Bible does not teach science, it cannot be admitted to contradict its discoveries. The coincidence in some instances may seem to be remote or fanciful, but it is not on that account to be rejected. New discoveries may remove doubt and reveal long-hidden connections.

We have already noticed (1) the long-mysterious questions in the Book of Job regarding the Pleiades, as