interferences, with the natural order of the phenomena which are the
subject-matter of that science? When Astronomy was young "the morning
stars sang together for joy," and the planets were guided in their
courses by celestial hands. Now, the harmony of the stars has resolved
itself into gravitation according to the inverse squares of the
distances, and the orbits of the planets are deducible from the laws of
the forces which allow a schoolboy's stone to break a window. The
lightning was the angel of the Lord; but it has pleased Providence, in
these modern times, that science should make it the humble messenger of
man, and we know that every flash that shimmers about the horizon on a
summer's evening is determined by ascertainable conditions, and that
its direction and brightness might, if our knowledge of these were
great enough, have been calculated.

The solvency of great mercantile companies rests on the validity of the
laws which have been ascertained to govern the seeming irregularity of
that human life which the moralist bewails as the most uncertain of
things; plague, pestilence, and famine are admitted, by all but fools,
to be the natural result of causes for the most part fully within human
control, and not the unavoidable tortures inflicted by wrathful
Omnipotence upon His helpless handiwork.

Harmonious order governing eternally continuous progress--the web and
woof of matter and force interweaving by slow degrees, without a broken
thread, that veil which lies between us and the Infinite--that universe
which alone we know or can know; such is the picture which science
draws of the world, and in proportion as any part of that picture is in
unison with the rest, so may we feel sure that it is rightly painted.
Shall Biology alone remain out of harmony with her sister sciences?