forces with which science deals were there, in the hand of Mother
Nature, waiting to be imparted to her child from the day when he first
stood upright and faced the stars.

Slowly he has been led on into a larger understanding of this wonderful
universe. And what has he learned under this tuition? What are some of
the great truths which have gradually impressed themselves upon his
mind?

He has been made sure, for one thing, that this is a universe; that all
its forces are coherent; that the same laws are in operation in every
part of it. The principles of mathematics are everywhere applicable;
gravitation controls all the worlds and every particle of matter in
every one of them, and the spectroscope assures us that the same
chemical elements which constitute our world are found in the farthest
star. "On every hand," says Walker, "we are assured that the guiding
principle of Science is that of the uniformity of nature."

It has also come to be understood that nature is all intelligible.
Everything can be explained. This is the fundamental assumption of
science. Many things have not yet been explained, but there is an
explanation for everything; of that every thinker feels perfectly sure.
"Fifty years ago," says Sir John Lubbock, "the Book of Nature was like
some richly illuminated missal, written in an unknown tongue; of the
true meaning little was known to us; indeed we scarcely realized that
there was a meaning to decipher. Now glimpses of the truth are gradually
revealing themselves; we perceive that there is a reason--and in many
cases we know what that reason is--for every difference in form, in
size, and in color, for every bone and feather, almost for every
hair."[6]