Stothert , James \.
Is Physical Science The Handmaid, Or The
of the Christian Revelation?
Edinburgh, 1854.

^nerrry

YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

irafe University Library,

IS PHYSICAL SCIENCE

THE HANDMAID, OR THE ENEMY

OF THE

CHRISTIAN REVELATION?

BY THE REV. JAMES A. STOTHERT.

EDINBURGH :
MARSH & BEATTIE, 13 SOUTH HANOVER STREET;
AND C. DOLMAN, LONDON.

1854.

PKICE ONE SHILLING.

IS PHYSICAL SCIENCE

THE HANDMAID, OR THE ENEMY

OF THE

CHRISTIAN REVELATION?

BY THE REV. JAMES A. STOTHERT.

EDINBURGH :
MARSH & BEATTIE, 13 SOUTH HANOVER STREET;
AND C. DOLMAN, LONDON.
1854.

N'TED BY ». K. COLLIE fc SON, EDINBURGH.

517

INTRODUCTION.

It is now some years since the line of argument, here
briefly sketched out, was first suggested to the Author,
during a casual visit to Bristol Cathedral. In the choir
of that old church reposes all that is mortal of Dr
Joseph Butlek, the Author of the Analogy of Natural
and Revealed Religion ; its south transept is adorned
with a slab, of marble, on which the pen of Southey
has inscribed the philosopher's noble epitaph. It shall
furnish a text for what is to follow ;* which might indeed
be extended, almost indefinitely, so wide is the prospect
unfolded to view in this department of philosophy ; and
which, in justice to itself, ought, perhaps, to be treated
more at large, and in detail ; but which is here proposed
to the thoughtful and unprejudiced examination of any of
the students of Nature, who may have hitherto imagined
that its indications were inconsistent with the claims of
Divine Revelation.

* The larger capitals are as they stand on the Monument.

IV

" OTHERS HAD ESTABLISHED
THE HISTORICAL AND PROPHETICAL GROUNDS
of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION,
AND
THAT SURE TESTIMONY OF ITS TRUTH
WHICH IS FOUND IN ITS PERFECT ADAPTATION
TO THE HEART OF MAN.
IT WAS RESERVED FOR HIM TO DEVELOPE
its ANALOGY to the CONSTITUTION
and COURSE of NATURE ;
AND, LAYING HIS STRONG FOUNDATIONS
IN THE DEPTH OF THAT GREAT ARGUMENT,
THERE TO CONSTRUCT
ANOTHER AND IRREFRAGABLE PROOF :
THUS RENDERING PHILOSOPHY
SUBSERVIENT TO FAITH,
AND FINDING IN OUTWARD AND VISIBLE THINGS
THE TYPE AND EVIDENCE
OF THOSE WITHIN THE VEIL."

Edinburgh,
October 2, 1854.

IS PHYSICAL SCIENCE
THE HANDMAID, OR THE ENEMY

OF THE

CHRISTIAN REVELATION?

If the philosophers of the nineteenth century are proud
of its scientific character, it is not without reason ; if they
congratulate themselves on having penetrated further
into the secrets of Nature than their predecessors, the
impartial judgment of future times will confirm the
opinion. It is no ordinary age that has, in the first half
of its course, produced men of the first eminence in
every branch of science, and contributed discoveries,
remarkable alike for their intrinsic value, and their
influence on the welfare of mankind. The progress of
the Physical Sciences, since the year 1800, has been
rapid and unprecedented ; some of them have assumed
a character and position entirely new, in consequence of
the number and brilliancy of the discoveries, and the
importance of the principles unfolded in relation to them.

6 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
Another era in the history of Chemistry opened with
Dalton's atomic theory, aided by the amazing industry
of Berzelius, in its practical application ; the labours of
Davy, in reducing the number of simple elements by
means of voltaic electricity, and Faraday's patient and
ever-advancing discoveries in the wide field of electro-
magnetism, have developed chemical science to an
extent, and in a direction which a former generation
would have deemed fabulous. During the same period,
Geology has been rescued from neglect, and from
serious charges of unsound tendencies, and been placed
in deserved rank among the sciences by the eminent
labours of Smith and Buckland, of Sedgwick and
Delabeche, of Lyell and Murchison, and Miller. The
stamp of the age has been put on the science of Optics
by the discovery of the polarisation of light by Malus ;
by the subsequent extension and perfection of that
discovery by Brewster and Arago ; and, more remarkably
still, by the profound investigations and independent
research of Young and Fresnel, on the subject of the
wave theory of light. Zoology, especially in its bearing
on Geology and the history of the earth, has been
carried to astonishing perfection, by the intuitive genius
and sagacity of Cuvier, and Agassiz, and Owen, and
Forbes. In the history of Astronomy, the queen of the
sciences, the nineteenth century must be ever memorable
as that in which was first established the appreciable
parallax of some among the stars commonly called

DISCOVERY OF NEPTUNE. 7
Fixed; at once spanning the hitherto illimitable abyss
which separates the solar system from those distant
luminaries, and opening up to human intelligence clear
and better defined views of the vastness of the universe.
The names of Bessel, Struve, and Argelander, of Airy
and Lord Rosse, and the two Herschels, are associated
with observations and discoveries, for which future ages
will look back to our time with admiration and gratitude.
The more recent observations of Herschel on Multiple
Stars may be assumed to have established the existence
of the great law of gravitation in regions of space, so
remote from our sight, that the diameter of the earth's
orbit, if searched for at that distance, through telescopes
equal to our most powerful, would be invisible. The
circumstances attending the discovery of the most distant
planet, Neptune, are perhaps the most extraordinary
proof of the high, intellectual culture of our time.
Another planet, Uranus, its next neighbour, had been
long observed to be subject to perturbations, for which
no known cause could altogether account. By an
elaborate and wholly independent calculation of these
disturbances, and a comparison of them with what
would have resulted from all the known causes of
irregularity, two mathematicians, Leverrier in France,
and Adams in England, were enabled, nearly at the
same time, and quite unknown to each other, to say
where the disturbing cause must be, and what must be
the conditions of its action. They communicated with

8 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
practical astronomers, and told them where they ought to
find a new planet ; telescopes were directed to the spot,
accurate star-maps were consulted, and there it was, the
newly discovered planet Neptune, wandering through
space, in an orbit of nearly three thousand millions of
miles' semi-diameter. Other discoveries had been the
result of good fortune, or the reward of patient accuracy
and untiring perseverance; here discovery was antici
pated, and directed by the conclusions of purely mathe
matical reasoning.
The nineteenth century, little more than half elapsed,
can also point with satisfaction to numerous observatories
in both hemispheres, where, in nightly vigils and daily
calculations, the accumulating observations and details
are amassed and arranged, which for years to come are
to guide the mariner through the pathless seas ; and to
.. furnish materials for future .generalisation in regard to
the laws of the physical universe ; where untiring account
is kept of those occult and variable magnetic influences,
which permeate the surface of our globe and the at
mosphere around it, to which the distinguished Humboldt
first urged attention, and in the investigation of which
the names of Kater and Sabine are conspicuous. In
chemical laboratories at home, and on the continent, the
progress of investigation into the internal constitution of
matter, is so extensive and so fruitful in results, that, as
we were lately informed by an eminent chemist, it is
hardly possible even for a professional man to keep up to

ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 9
the mark of weekly discovery. The triumphs of steam-
power in connexion with machinery ; the perfection at
tained by modern engineering, and the multiplication of
its resources; the wonderful results produced by the
combination and division of labour, illustrated by the
completion of vast works, and the supply of materials for
our world-wide commerce ; and, not least of all, the
application of the electric current to the transmission of
messages, originally suggested by a Scotsman, in the
year 1753,* and perfected by Wheatstone and others,
the influence of which, in flashing intelligence from one
side of the world to the other, is not improbably destined
to act more powerfully than that of steam and railway
communication, on the future history of mankind ; all
these valuable and enduring evidences of the scientific
pre-eminence of our age, are no inconsiderable or un
reasonable cause of elation and self-congratulation among
contemporary philosophers. There never was a time
when juster views on the subjects of Physical Science
were more generally diffused among the community at
large ; when a readier ear could be gained for any new
and well supported claims of science ; when the public
mind thirsted more eagerly for fresh draughts from the
fountain of knowledge ; or when more competent persons
were engaged in providing means for satisfying this
universal thirst. Scientific Societies are numerous and
* See Scots Magazine, February. 1753.

10 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
active ; Mechanics' Institutes, Philosophical Associations,
Athenaeums, and other reunions of a kindred nature, are
organised and flourishing in every large town in the
kingdom, for the purpose of conveying a little rill of
this coveted knowledge to the tradesmen and artisans of
Britain, in the short intervals of their daily toil. The
very credulity with which some unscientific and prepos
terous theories of motion have been lately accepted and
believed by multitudes of educated persons, and which
Faraday has the merit of first boldly denouncing, is an
other proof of the desire of something new in Physics,
which animates large masses of thinking men, and which
is often much more developed than their power of dis
tinguishing what is true from what is false, or empirical,
in the philosophy of nature.
The contemplation of this picture of the nineteenth
century suggests a question of some moment : What is
the relation of this scientific developement to Revela
tion ? What influence is it likely to have on the con
clusions of Faith ? A simple mind, or a simple age, re
ceives these implicitly : will the influence of Science on
either dispose, or indispose it, to similar confidence ? Are
modern discoveries likely to throw a reasonable doubt
on the province of Revelation ; or are they more likely
to reflect light upon it, and establish its land marks?
This is a question of the last moment. The age is
bent on acquiring knowledge ; it is justly elated by its
progress in search of this precious gift ; and, all the

WHAT IS REVELATION ? 11
while, its dependence on the great truths of Revelation
is not less than that of a simple age. Faith, if ever
necessary, is not less so now, than when all the brilliant
discoveries of our era lay in the folds of the future time.
They will not, with all their brilliancy, direct and save
one human soul, or illuminate the obscure region which
lies beyond the grave. If Science must dissolve the
charm of Belief, alas ! for the elation of our age, at its
own high attainments ; better had it been for it that the
ancient ignorance of physical laws had never been
dissipated, than that its dispersion should have been so
dearly purchased.
Of course, by Revelation, the Author must be under
stood to mean the whole will of God, revealed to the
world, and taught by the Catholic Church ; as well that
part of it which Protestants reject, as the mutilated part
of it which the greater number of them are agreed in
accepting ; all the doctrines peculiarly and distinctively
belonging to Catholicity, together with others which it
holds and teaches in common with all calling themselves
Christian. What relation, then, we ask, has the modern
advance of Science to this undivided sum of revealed
truth ? Is it one of hostility or of harmony, of illustra
tion and confirmation, or of antagonism? Is Physical
Science the handmaid, or, the enemy of faith ?
(1.) Now, a very great number of persons, under-
derstanding Revelation in the sense in which we have
defined it, would answer this question by saying that

12 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
Science is the enemy of revealed Truth, as maintained by
the Catholic Church ; that the more generally scientific
and accurate ideas of the laws and constitution of the
physical universe are diffused, the more difficult must
' grow the belief of sensible men, claimed by the Catholic
Church for apparently impossible exceptions to those
laws. We can even imagine some good Catholics, little
versed in scientific pursuits, of the same opinion, and
therefore jealous of this general craving of the people for
secular knowledge. Among the Protestants of this
countiy it is currently believed that the Catholic Church
is as keenly and doggedly opposed to Science as Science
is to her ; that her unchanging policy has always been
to keep her children in ignorance, so as the more easily
to subdue their intelligence to her bidding.
(2.) An answer of a different kind we should expect
to receive from a numerous class of friends, and from a
few opponents ; namely, that the relation of Science to
Revelation is one of indifference, as they belong to
spheres of knowledge totally distinct and independent.
A few remarks on each of these answers will best intro
duce the Author's own attempt at a solution of the
question. As to the first : well informed and candid inquirers
into the truth of things are beginning slowly to perceive
that the Catholic Church has been mis-represented, as
invariably the enemy of Science ; especially in the
critical and much agitated controversy of the geocentric

THE POPE AND GALILEO. 13
and heliocentric theories of the planetary motions, which
has been chosen as the weakest point of attack. Two
writers of the highest eminence in science, with no
religious bias whatever towards Catholicity, have given
remarkable testimony on this subject. Sir David Brewster
in his Life of Galileo, has adopted a tone of fairness to
the Catholic Church, unhappily rare in Protestant treat
ment of such topics in general. We do not think he has
done full justice to Galileo's Roman judges ; but, at least,
he has given the Roman Pontiffs some credit for their
patronage of men of science. We recommend the whole
life to the notice of our readers, and shall cite the
following passage from it. After mentioning the pension
granted to Galileo by Pope Urban VIII., in 1624, Sir
David adds : " The pension thus given by Urban was
not the remuneration which sovereigns sometimes award
to the services of their subjects. Galileo was a foreigner
at Rome. The sovereign of the papal state owed him no
obligation; and hence we must regard the pension of
Galileo as a donation from the Roman Pontiff to Science
itself, and as a declaration to the Christian world that
religion was not jealous of philosophy, and that the
Church of Rome was willing to respect and foster even
the genius of its enemies."*
The other writer whom we shall cite is a no less cele
brated authority in science than the present Astronomer

* Martyrs of Science ; Ed. 1846 ; p. 63.

14 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
Royal, who, while condemning the treatment which Galileo
received at the hands of the Roman Inquisition, is free
to admit that Rome did not always oppose science ; and
even this qualified admission, from so eminent a person,
is worth a good deal to our purpose. His remark is
this : " This great step in the explanation of the plane
tary motions was made by Copernicus, an ecclesiastic in
the Romish Church, a Canon of Thorn, a city of Prussia.
The work in which he published it is dedicated to the
Pope. At that time it would appear that there was no
disinclination in the Romish Church to receive new astro
nomical theories. But in no long time after, when
Galileo, a philosopher of Florence, taught the same
theory, he was brought to trial by the Romish Church,
then in full power, and was compelled to renounce the
theory. How these two different courses of the Romish
Church are to be reconciled, I do not know. But the
fact is so." *
We are not concerned at present with Galileo's un
happy story, further than to remark, that there is as usual
much to be said on the side of his Roman judges, which
is perhaps no where so well said as in the pages of The
Dublin Review, No. IX., July 1838. The views there
advanced have never been called in question ; we may
therefore assume that they are substantially unassailable.
As to the general question of the assistance which the

* Aivy's Lectures on Astronomy, p. 85.

SCIENTIFIC JESUITS. 15
Catholic Church has lent, directly or indirectly, to
science, we should like to know what other Church, or
body of Ecclesiastics, has done anything in this field
compared with the labours and the successes of the
Society of Jesus alone. The names of Clavius and
Kircher, of Boscovich, De Vico, and Pianciani, may
stand for a memorial of the prosperous union of Science
and Catholic Revelation.*
As to the second solution of our question : that Science
and Revelation are indifferent, because entirely dissimi
lar to each other, in nature and objects ; it appears to

* F. Christopher Clavius, S. J., an eminent German mathemati
cian and astronomer, was employed by Gregory XIII. in the refor
mation of the calendar. His Gregorian Calendar, published in
1581, was tardily adopted in Protestant countries, and now regu
lates our system of Leap-years. His collected mathematical and
scientific works amount to five volumes folio. He was killed in
1612, aged 75.
F. Athanasius Kircher, S. J., also a native of Germany, was a
diligent cultivator of science. His works, in twenty-two folio, and
eleven quarto volumes, embrace learned and original treatises on
many recondite branches of physical science ; on Magnetism,
Optics, Acoustics, Geography, &c, &c. He filled the chair of
Mathematics in the Jesuit Roman College, and laid the foundation
of its extensive and valuable museum. He died at Rome, in 1680,
at the age of 79.
F. Roger Joseph Boscovich, S. J., a native of Ragusa, filled the
chair of Astronomy in the Jesuit Roman College for thirty years,
and was highly distinguished for the depth, originality, and variety
of his acquirements in Natural Philosophy. He published several
valuable treatises on the Philosophy of Newton, on Optics, &c.
He is best known out of Italy for his ingenious theory of the mole-

16 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
us that analogy points quite the other way. For, (1.)
they both have a common origin in the will of God ; and
it is not unreasonable to expect that they shall exhibit
some traces of common principles. And this, especially,
if we direct our attention to the difficulties which lie in
the way of our acceptance of the conclusions proposed to
us by either; if they are actually found to resemble each
other in many of these, their relation can no longer be
considered one of indifference. Nay, on the principles on
which Dr Joseph Butler constructed his immortal work, if
revealed truth proceeds from the Author of Nature, we

cular constitution of matter ; a theory which the increasing know
ledge of, more modern philosophy has only confirmed. After the
suppression of his order in 1773, he was welcomed to Paris, and
taught philosophy there for a time ; but returning to Italy, he died
at Milan, in 1787, aged 75.
F. De Vico, S. J., was also an eminent astronomer in the Jesuit
Roman College. His discovery of several comets introduced him
to the circle of men of science. When the Jesuits were driven
from Rome in 1848, he was received with open arms in the United
States ; but, unhappily for science, he died in London a very few
years ago, while procuring instruments for his observatory in the
far West. He was highly esteemed and beloved by his pupils, of
whom there are many in this country.
F. Pianciani, S. J., for many years taught chemistry in the Jesuit
Roman College. He still enjoys a green old age, admired for the
simplicity of his manners, no less than for the valuable contribu
tions he has made to the literature of chemical science. Besides
a larger and smaller treatise on it, he has published a work on the
Cosmogony of Moses; and, we believe, is still preparing other
treatises for the press.

BUTLER'S ARGUMENT. IT
may expect to find the same difficulties in it, as we find
in nature. And, conversely, it is no objection to the
Divine origin of revealed truth, that its reception implies
difficulties as great as the acceptance of the facts and
laws of nature presupposes us to have overcome. And,
(2.) we may argue from the mutual analogy of other
sciences to one another; how dissimilar soever they
appear to a superficial observer to be, there is a com
munity of principles, and of general laws, which binds
them together, and connects them with their common
origin in the Divine mind. This idea is, as many of our
readers are aware, beautifully developed by Mrs Somer-
ville in her charming work On the Connexion of the
Physical Sciences.
From these preliminary remarks, the Author's own
solution of the question of hostility, or indifference, be
tween Science and Revelation may be gathered ; namely,
that though in their nature, objects, and details widely
separated, yet they are linked together by a thousand
delicate ties, unperceived by a careless observer, but well
repaying elaborate study. Science is the true handmaid
of Revelation, doing service to the superior nature, but
exhibiting tokens of a commission to do so, imparted to
her by the Divine Creator of both. The Author has
devoted some attention to this interesting subject ; and
at some future time, if granted health and leisure, he
hopes to state and illustrate his views more at large, and
in a more permanent form ; meanwhile he proposes briefly

lb PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
to sketch some of the conclusions and trains of thought
suggested to him by these studies ; confining his remarks
entirely to those portions of revealed truth which are the
exclusive property of the Catholic Church, and which are
generally known in the Protestant world as Popish doc
trines, such as the Blessed Eucharist ; the question of
Miracles in general ; and all that is supernatural and im
perceptible to the senses, in Catholic belief.
I. A preliminary difficulty lying in the way of belief
in the supernatural character of revealed religion, is the
fiat contradiction which it apparently gives to the evi
dence of the senses ; the manifest discrepancy between
what is alleged and proposed to our belief, and what is
seen with our eyes, and appreciated by other sensuous
organs. Modern science, however, is as inexorable in her
demands on human credence, in defiance of the senses,
as was ever Revelation on the assent of faith. The
senses have their empire much restricted by the canons
of our philosophers. For, (1.) it is fully established that
each organ of sense is susceptible of one class of impres
sions only, which it passes on to the sensorium, or seat
of thought. Thus the organ of vision admits and
communicates impressions of light alone ; that of hear
ing, impressions of sound, or of the wave of air set in
motion by the cause producing sound, and no others.
The organs of taste and smell, in like manner, have their
own classes of susceptibilities, which, again, are not the

EMPIRE OF THE SENSES. 19
same as those belonging to the nerves of touch. For
every other class of impressions than its own, each organ
of sense is absolutely inert and useless. The eye can
take no cognisance of sound, nor the ear of light : if the
eye can feel a touch, it is because certain parts of its
structure are furnished with branches of the nerves of
touch ; and so of the rest. Electricity alone seems to
have the remarkable power of exciting in all the organs
of sense, sensations proper to the nature of each ; in
the eye, for example, a flash of light ; distinct sounds ;
a phosphoric odour, a peculiar taste, and a pricking
feeling, in the same person, at the same time.* Again,
(2.) sensations arising from those impressions are so ex
ceedingly complex, that we attribute many more of
them to each separate sense than really belong to it. By
habit we have become so much accustomed to associate
several of those impressions together, as to be unable,
without difficulty, to analyse them, and to separate the
simple results of the sensuous impression from the more com
plicated judgments which experience and reason add to it,
and by which they interpret it. The eye, for example,
receives and conveys impressions purely and solely of
light, and its absence, including those of colour, which
belong to light. Form, extension, sense of distance, &c,
are no part of the simple impression made upon the eye,
and through it upon the mind, further than they influence

* Somerville's Connexion, &c, § xxix. p. 339. Carpenter's Manual
of Physiology ; § 932.

20 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
the condition of the light, as by bounding it, shading it?
&c. These belong exclusively to the sense of touch,
combined with experience, so as to be suggested, with
out actual contact, by certain conditions of light. An
inexperienced eye, looking for the first time at a plain
surface, as a disc, or at a cube, or a ball, would see only
the colour, and the edges where that changed. It could
not enable the mind to judge how far the object was dis
tant ; nor why the light and shade were differently dis
posed in each ; why the light reflected from the disc
was uniform, and bounded by a circle, while that from
the ball was softly shaded, though bounded by a circular
line similar to the disc ; nor why the light coming from
the cube was divided and bounded by straight lines, and
sharp angles. To judge of these peculiarities, and their
meaning, touch must come to the aid of sight; and
afterwards memory will recal the conclusions of former
experience ; and comparison will enable the reasoning
mind to form a judgment regarding the shape, size, and
distance of the object. In a similar manner, the organs
of hearing convey impressions of sound alone ; distance,
direction, exciting cause, are quite out of the province of
its information. Sight and touch, and experience and
judgment, all enter into the complex information, now
communicated to a practised observer. This fact is
strikingly exemplified in musical sounds. A skilful
musician will tell you the notes and chords composing
a series of such sounds, in which an uninformed and un-

SENSE OF TASTE. 21
practised ear will be able to detect nothing but concord
or discord. Thus Mozart, at two hearings, was able to
note down the score of Allegri's Miserere. Thus, too,
there are many substances which we judge of by taste,
as it is supposed, but which are in reality operative on the
sense of smell. For instance, if the nose is held while
eating cinnamon, we shall perceive no difference between
its flavour and that of a deal shaving.* The same fact
is observed with regard to many aromatic substances :
if held in the mouth, or rubbed between the tongue and
the palate, the nostrils being all the while closed, their
taste is hardly, if at all, recognised ; but it is immediately
perceived on re-opening the nasal passages. Thus, too,
the wine-taster closes his mouth, and sends the aroma of
the wine through his nostrils. Other substances, again,
there are, neither aromatic nor volatile, whose taste very
strongly irritates the mucus membrane both of nose
and tongue, as mustard does, for example, just as it
would the skin, if applied long enough externally. Such
a sensation, therefore, as the taste of mustard, evidently
belongs to the organs of touch, differing in degree of
sensibility only. Hence we are taught that the substances
properly the objects of the .sense of taste, are those only
which produce sensations purely and exclusively gusta-
tive, perceived neither through the nose, nor through the
nerves of touch, but acting on the tongue and palate

* Herschel's Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, § 72.
c

22 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
only. Salt, sugar, quinin, tannin, and citric acid, types oi
the saline, saccharine, bitter, astringent, and sour, are said
to possess sapid properties* From these simple consid
erations it appears undoubted that the province of each
separate organ of sensation, and its resultant impres
sions on the mind, are much limited, when compared with
the wider empire attributed to them by popular language
and opinion. Reason is ever correcting and enlarging
the simple impression, adding the conclusions of expe
rience, and judgment, and comparison, to the primary
suggestions of the sensation ; making allowances for what
is faulty, or imperfect; measuring circumstances, and
comparing all the conditions of the impression with each
other, before even an approximately true result can be
arrived at.
Further (3.) there is much in nature of which the
senses totally fail in given us any information whatever.
" None of the senses," says Sir J. Herschel, " gives us
direct information for the exact comparison of quantity.
Number, indeed, that is to say, integer number, is an
object of sense, because we can count ; but we can
neither weigh, nor measure, nor form any precise esti
mate of fractional parts by the unassisted senses.
Scarcely any man could tell the difference between
twenty pounds, and the same weight encreased or dimin
ished by a few ounces ; still less could he judge of the

* Carpenter's Manual of Physiology, § 945.

OCULAR DECEPTION. 23
proportion between an ounce of gold and a hundred
grains of cotton by balancing them in his hands."* Nay,
even in their own proper and peculiar province, the
senses are singularly deficient in certain kinds of in
formation, especially when comparison is involved.
" The eye," says the same high authority, " is no judge
of the proportion of different degrees of illumination,
even when seen side by side ; and if an interval elapses,
and circumstances change, nothing can be more vague
than its judgment. When we gaze with admiration at
the gorgeous spectacle of the golden clouds at sunset,
which seem drenched in light, and glowing like flames
of real fire, it is hardly by an effort we can persuade
ourselves to regard them as the very same objects which
at noonday pass unnoticed as mere white clouds basking
in the sun, only participating, from their great horizontal
distance, in the ruddy tint which luminaries acquire by
shining through a great extent of the vapour of the atmos
phere, and thereby even losing something of their light.
So it is with our estimates of time, velocity, and all other
matters of quantity ; they are absolutely vague and in
adequate to form a foundation for any exact conclu
sion." t
Again (4.) there is a large class of phenomena whose
causes, and even whose existence, are far too remote or

* Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, § 117.
t lb., §117.

24 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
too minute to be revealed to us by our senses. What
are telescopes and microscopes, but the means which
science ingeniously devises to supply this innate and
irreparable deficiency of our organs of sense ? Satirists
of the middle age, and its scholastic philosophers, have
said that they would dispute as to the number of spirits
that could dance on the point of a needle. Modern
science shows us, in the Infusoria, animals of perfect
formation, endowed with functions suited to their con
dition, many thousands of which could pass at once
through the eye of the finest needle ; a million of which
would not amount in bulk to a grain of sand. No less
wonderful is the world of minute existence, revealed
by the microscope, in a drop of stagnant water. It is a
world within itself, an epitome of the earth, and it suc
cessive geological races. A variety of microscopic crea
tures make their appearance, and die ; in a few days, a
new set succeeds ; these disappear in their turn, and
their place is occupied by a third race, of a different kind
from either of the former, — the remains of all of them
lying at the bottom of the glass.* " If for a moment,"
says Humboldt, " we could yield to the power of fancy,
and imagine the acuteness of our visual organ to be
made equal to the extreme bounds of telescopic vision,
and bring together that which is now divided by long
periods of time, the apparent rest which reigns in space
* Somerville's Physical Geography ; II., xxxii. 348, note.

GROWTH VISIBLE. 25
would suddenly disappear. We should see the countless
hosts of fixed stars moving in thronged groups, in dif
ferent directions; nebulae wandering through space,
and becoming condensed and dissolved like clouds, the
veil of the milky way separated and broken up in
many parts, and motion ruling supreme in every portion
of the vault of heaven, even as on the earth's surface,
where we see it unfolded in the germ, the leaf, and the
blossom, the organisms of the vegetable world. The
celebrated Spanish botanist, Cavanilles, was the first who
entertained the idea of ' seeing the grass grow.' He
directed the horizontal micrometer threads of a power
ful magnifying glass at one time to the apex of the shoot
of a bambusa, and at another, on the rapidly growing
stem of an American aloe, precisely as the astronomer
places his cross of network against a culminating star." *
Without speculating so deeply in what is distant and
hidden, the very atmosphere in which we ljve and
breathe is imperceptible to every one of our senses, ex
cept, indeed, when viewed through its whole depth, to
that of sight in the blue colour of the sky, or indirectly
to that of touch, by the resistance which it offers to the
hand, or the face, in passing rapidly through it, or when
it is set in motion by the wind. We perceive its effects,
indeed, in the modifications which the phenomena of
light and sound undergo, in consequence of its action
* C'omos. I., 139, 140.

26 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
upon them ; in the barometric column, and in a thou
sand other physical and chemical agencies which attest
the presence of the atmosphere, and the important func
tions which it performs in our terrestrial economy. But
as far as sight or hearing, taste or smell, are affected by
it, directly, it has absolutely no existence.
Modern science, indeed, coming to the aid of the
senses, can enable them to attain the results of an almost
inconceivable acuteness. Thus while quantity and com
parison are inappreciable, or nearly so, by the unaided
organs of sense, balances have been constructed with a
sensibility so exquisite, as to turn with the thousandth
part of a grain, and yet pretend to no extraordinary de
gree of merit.* By the aid of an instrument called a
spherometer, which substitutes the sense of touch for
that of sight, an inch may be divided into twenty
thousand parts ; and the lever of contact, an instrument
in use among the German opticians, enables them to
appreciate quantities of space even yet smaller.t In
struments have been devised capable of measuring inter
vals of time equal to the ^ part of a second. By the
revolution of a toothed wheel, striking against a piece of
card, the human ear is enabled to appreciate a sound
which lasts only ^ of a second, and thus to measure

* Herschel's Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy S 338
fib., §338.

MTNUTE SUBDIVISION. 27
that extremely minute interval of time* Wheatstone, in
the course of his experiments on the velocity of the elec
tric fluid, constructed an apparatus which enables the eye
to perceive an interval, equal to less than j^km of a se
cond of time. The exact value of this almost infinitesi
mal interval was ascertained and measured by the known
effect of a sound of high pitch upon the ear.f It is un
necessary to multiply such examples ; but so many we
have adduced, for the purpose of demonstrating the ex
tent of the world of physical observation which lies for
ever concealed from the natural organs of sense. We owe
this knowledge of their incapacity for more than a very
limited range of observation to the inventions of science,
applied to remedy and supplement this very incapacity.
Thus science tells tales against the human senses, of
which a less inventive and informed age could never
have even dreamed.
Once more, (5.) the senses are not only restricted in
their sphere of action, and incapable of penetrating
beyond a certain limit into the mysteries of physical
nature, but even within their own proper province of
observation, their indications are constantly false and
erroneous ; so that if we were implicitly to receive and
adopt these indications, without due correction, our
notions of the constitution of nature would be singularly

* Somerville's Connexion, etc., § xvi. p. 147.
f lb., § xxviii. p. 325.

28 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
wide of the truth. As they appear to the naked eye,
the sun and moon seem nearly of the same size ; flat
discs, about as large as the crown of a hat. Uncorrected
sense teaches us no more; it furnishes no means of
measuring either their absolute or their relative distance.
But from other sources, we learn that one is about four
hundred times further off than the other ; that the mass
of the one would fill a space bounded by double the orbit
of the other ; and that the centre of the sun is nearly
half a million of miles nearer our eye than his limb, or
the bounding line of his disc, a space equal to more
than twice the distance of the moon from the earth.
The limits prescribed to himself, forbid the Author to
enlarge on this interesting portion of his subject, which,
however, he regrets the less, that any one anxious to
follow it out, will find an excellent paper on " Popular
Fallacies," in Lardners Museum of Science and Art,
January 1854; a new scientific and popular serial,
which has started under the best auspices, and deserves
to be widely circulated.
Did space permit, we might illustrate the fallacious
teaching of the senses regarding the phenomena of
nature, by the corrections made necessary in every scien
tific observation, as to the position of distant objects, in
consequence of the refraction or bending of the rays of
light in their passage through the air, which has the
effect of making distant objects in space seem higher
than they really are ; of the correction necessary for the

VARIABLE SENSATIONS. 29
aberration of light, depending on the time taken to
transmit it from a distant object in space ; together with
others which enter into the daily experience of the
observers of nature. Other circumstances also materially
influence the impressions conveyed through the organs of
sense. Thus a person going into an ordinarily lighted
apartment from the dark night, will be painfully affec
ted by the brightness of the light for a few moments ;
while another, entering the same room from a brightly
illuminated chamber, will hardly be able for a moment
or two to see anything.* If we plunge our hands, one
into ice-cold water, and the other into water as hot as it
can be borne, and after letting them stay a while, sud
denly transfer them both to a vessel full of water at
blood-heat, the one will feel it hot, and the other cold.
If we cross the two first fingers of our hand, and place
a pea in the fork between them, moving and rolling it
about on a table, we shall be fully persuaded, especially
if we close our eyes, that we have two peas.f The other
senses are similarly affected by circumstances, so as to
convey erroneous impressions. Mrs Somerville sums up
the evidence on this head in one word, when she re
marks that, " a consciousness of the fallacy of our senses
is one of the most important consequences of the study
of nature. This study teaches us that no object is seen

* Carpenter's Manual of Physiology, § 933.
f Herschel's Discourse, § 72.

30 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
by us in its true place."* And elsewhere she adds, " A
high degree of scientific knowledge has been necessary
to dispel the errors of the senses." t Herschel has the
following remark in his Outlines of Astronomy^: — "No
geometrical figure, or curve, is seen by the eye as it is
conceived by the mind to exist in reality. The laws of
perspective interfere and alter the apparent directions,
and foreshorten the dimensions of its several parts. If the
spectator be unfavourably situated, as, for instance, nearly
in the plane of the figure, they may do so to such an
extent as to make a considerable effort of imagination
necessary to pass from the sensible to the real form."
There is one form of illusion to which the senses are
liable, so remarkable and irremediable as to deserve a
moment's notice ; we mean their erroneous testimony re
garding Motion. We have the authority of Sir J.
Herschel for saying, that " there is no peculiar sensation
which advertises us that we are in motion. The rough
inequalities in the road are felt as we are carried over
them, by the successive elevation and falling of the
carriage ; but we have no sense of progress if we are
prevented from seeing surrounding objects. The smoother
the road, and the faster the speed, the less able are we
to feel our motion forward. Every one must have felt

* Connexion of Physical Sciences, § xxv. p. 264.
tlb.,§iy. p. 37. '
% Chap. i. § 78.

SENSE OF MOTION. 31
this in night travelling by the railway, or in a tunnel. In
a balloon, with a steady breeze, which merely propels,
without gyration or oscillation, the motion is described as
a sensation of perfect rest. The same is observed on
shipboard, in still water, or a calm. Everything goes on
as if on land."* To complete the illusion, nothing is
more common than apparently to transfer our own motion
to the stationary objects around us. This is peculiarly
observable at railway stations, when a train first gently
moves off. If another train is standing near, and parallel
to our own, it is impossible to tell which is moving, our
own, or the other in an opposite direction, without calling
in the aid of a third object, to correct the doubtful or
erroneous impression, by the direction in which it seems
relatively to change its place ; or by examining the
wheels of the other train. In the same way, many
persons, while witnessing a panorama, are painfully
affected by the shifting of the scenes, which conveys to
them an impression as if the room were going round, and
the picture remaining stationary. It was this illusion of
the senses, as to motion, that perpetuated to a very late
date the capital error regarding the supposed circulation
of the sun and planets round the unmoving earth ; the
dispelling of which, by Galileo and subsequent observers,
was the greatest triumph ever achieved by philosophy
over the empire of the senses.
* Outlines of Astronomy, § 15, 16.

32 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
The simple matter of iact is this, that our senses were
given us for a certain definite and practical end, not for
the acquisition of universal knowledge. We use them
thankfully within their own domain, but we should err by
inferring that their indications are the measure of the
true, or of the whole constitution of things :, their teaching
falls far short of what exists in the universe of material
nature ; into the world of spiritual existence and opera
tion they have no mission to enter. Catholic doctrine
therefore is in no worse position, as regards' the contra
diction of the senses to its results, than is the great mass
of scientific knowledge ; to deny the one is as unphilo-
sophical as to deny the other, merely because the organs
of sense fail to appreciate it, or afford indications
directly contrary to it.
II. The advance of science has thrown some light on a
subject of extreme difficulty and abstruseness : the relation
of the qualities or accidents of matter to its substance.
It is a subject of extreme difficulty, into which it seems
not permitted to man to penetrate beyond the surface ;
but in regard to which much ignorance and misapprehen
sion have been dispelled by the observations and deduce
tions of modern philosophers. There are certain external
marks or notes by which we recognise certain material
things, as their form, their colour, their hardness, or soft
ness, etc. One thing we call wood, another iron, a third
wax, and so on. These external notes or marks by which we
distinguish bodies, are called their qualities, accidents, or

WHAT IS SUBSTANCE ? 33
properties. Underneath them there is the substance of
the material thing, of which we have no means what
ever of knowing anything. What it is that constitutes
the difference between wood and iron, in their substance,
must remain for ever a secret to our senses. We can
perceive that one is harder, heavier, colder, than the
other ; but these observations go no farther than the ex
ternal qualities of the two bodies ; regarding their abso
lute substance, or internal constitution, we have no pos
sible means of forming a judgment. For all that we
know, it may be the same in all bodies, or it may be as
various as the simple elements of matter, now limited by
chemists to about 60, or it may be much more various.
It is one of the mysteries of matter, which will probably
never be disclosed to the eye of man in this life.
Not only is the nature of material substance thus un
known to us, except through the external qualities, or
accidents, which represent it; but we are informed by
science that most of these qualities are the result of cir
cumstances, wholly distinct from their subject. A com
plete revolution in popular ideas has in part been
achieved, in regard to the permanence and immuta
bility of these qualities of matter. Nothing seems more
natural than to say, that a red rose must be always red,
a violet always blue, or that the size, shape, etc., of
material bodies are inseparable from their existence.
Yet Proteus himself was not more various in his shapes,
than is the violet and the rose in the varieties of colour

34 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
of which it is susceptible. Colour, in fact, has no exist
ence at all in the material object which we look at ; it
is a condition of the ray of light, which enters our eye
after reflection from the object, or after passing through
it. Some objects absorb one or more parts of the three
fold visible ray of white light, and transmit or reflect to
our eye only what remains of its constituent parts ; some
objects send the whole ray, undecomposed, to the eye, and
we call them white ; others absorb it altogether, and they
are said to be black. But all bodies, whatever their
original colour, that is, whatever part of the white ray
they send to the eye, after absorbing the rest, may be
made to appear of any colour, by viewing them under the
influence of variously coloured light ; which proves that
their colour exists not in themselves, but in the light
which falls upon them, and on which their substance acts
in some unknown way.
Sir John Herschel's testimony on this subject is very
explicit. " Nothing at first can seem a more rational,
obvious, and incontrovertible conclusion, than that the
colour of an object is an inherent quality, like its weight,
hardness, &c. ; and to see the object, and to see it of its
own colour, when nothing intervenes between our eyes
and it, are one and the same thing. Yet this is only a
prejudice ; and that it is so, is shown by bringing forward
the same sense of vision which led to its adoption, as
evidence on the other side ; for when the differently
coloured prismatic rays are thrown, in a dark room, in

FORM NOT PERMANENT. 35
succession upon any object, whatever be the colour we
are in the habit of calling its own, it will appear of the
particular hue of the light which falls upon it : a yellow
paper, for instance, will appear scarlet, when illuminated
by red rays' ; yellow, when by yellow ; green, by green ;
and blue, by blue rays ; its own (so called) proper colour
not in the least mixing with what it so exhibits." *
In like manner, other qualities of matter have no ab
solute existence, independent of circumstances. Twenty
solid inches of sea water, if subjected to a pressure equal
to that at a distance of twenty miles below the surface,
would be reduced in volume to nineteen inches, t A
globe, an inch in diameter, consisting of air of the ordi
nary density at the earth's surface, if it could be removed
into space, one radius of the earth, say 4000 miles, would
expand into a sphere exceeding in radius the orbit of
Saturn, as Sir Isaac Newton has calculated. Hence the
tail of a great comet, such as that observed in 1843, and
which extended, from its nucleus 200 millions of miles,J
may, for aught we know, consist only of a very few
pounds, or even ounces of matter, expanded to a degree of
tenuity, to our minds almost inconceivable.il The same
agent, heat, modifies the extension and form of matter in

* Discourse, etc., § 71. ,
f Somerville's Physical Geography, I., chap. xvi. p. 318.
J Hind's Comets, p. 22.
|| Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xi. § 559, note.

36 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
totally opposite ways ; making clay contract and lose in
volume ; while expanding water, and still more largely
air. Extension, or form, therefore, is subject to great
modification by change of circumstances ; nor is weight
less so. A pound weight of matter at the earth's equa
tor weighs heavier at the poles; or, which is the same
thing, a pendulum oscillates faster at the poles than at
the equator. If removed to the planet Mars or Mercury,
a pound of matter would lose half its weight ; if to the
surface of Jupiter, it would weigh nearly three times
heavier. If there is one quality more than another, characteristic
of solid rock, it is the immobility of its parts ; as mobility
is a distinctive feature of water and vapour. Yet experi
ments in crystallisation have demonstrated the existence
of mobility even in solid bodies, in an unimaginable degree.
Mrs Somerville remarks, that " we are led, from the mo
bility of fluids, to expect great changes in the relative
position of their molecules, which must be in perpetual
motion, even in the stillest water, and the calmest air ;
but we are not prepared to find motion to such an extent
in the interior of solids. That their particles are brought
nearer by cold, and pressure, or removed further from one
another by heat, might be expected ; but it could not
have been anticipated that their relative positions could
be so entirely changed as to alter their mode of aggrega
tion. It follows from the low temperature at which these
changes are effected, that there is probably no position of

MOBILITY IN ROCK. 37
inorganic matter that is not in a state of relative motion." *
And elsewhere, in her Physical Geography, the same high
authority assures us that " nothing can be more certain
than that the minute particles of matter are constantly in
motion, from the action of heat, mutual attraction, and
electricity. Prismatic crystals of salts of zinc are changed
in a few seconds into crystals of a totally different form
by the heat of the sun; casts of shells are found in
rocks, from which the animal matter has been removed,
and its place supplied by mineral ; and the excavations
made in rocks diminish sensibly in size in a short time if
the rock be soft, and in a longer time when it is hard ;
circumstances which show an intestine motion of the
particles, not only in their relative positions, but in space,
which there is every reason to believe is owing to
electricity ; a power which, if not the sole agent, must,
at least, have co-operated essentially in the formation and
filling of mineral veins." f
In the language of the older treatises on science, glass
is said to be transparent; gold, coal, &c, opaque, that is,
incapable of transmitting light. But there is no sub
stance known to modem discovery, which, if sufficiently
attenuated, is not capable of being seen through. Opacity,
therefore, has no real existence, as a quality of matter ;
it depends only on condition and circumstances. Hard
ness or softness, in like manner, are easily separable from
* Connexion of Phys. Sciences, § 14, p. 125.
f Phys. Geog. I. ch. xv. pp. 288, 289.

38 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
the substance of matter. Clay in its natural state is
soft, apply heat to it, and it becomes hard; wax is
naturally hard, but becomes soft and ductile when
warmed. Thus our knowledge of the internal constitu
tion of material substance, through the medium of its
external qualities, is in the highest degree uncertain,
variable, and often erroneous. For there is not one of
those external notes or marks, which we call qualities,
which cannot be changed or modified in such a way as
seriously to derange the accuracy of our observations.
Enough of accuracy has been secured for the purposes of
our daily life ; but, like the senses, our knowledge of the
relation of quality to substance was never intended to
carry us through the boundless field of knowledge, or
enable us to pronounce with certainty regarding the
nature, the difference, or the identity of substance, merely
from the indications given us by its apparent qualities.
These are truly accidents ; things which do not affect the
essence of matter ; but connected with it in an evanescent
way, liable to sudden change, and totally baffling our
attempts to establish any certain criterion of substance
by means of our observations on its qualities.
Recent observations in Chemistry have still further
demonstrated the impossibility of arriving at any know
ledge of the internal structure of matter, from its ap
pearances. The delicate tests invented by chemists, in
order to detect the difference between substances which
appear to every human sense the same, though they

POLARISED LIGHT. 39
effect their purpose with marvelleus ingenuity, yet fail in
indicating the ultimate reason for their efficiency. Thus
syrup extracted from the sugar-cane, or from plants
yielding similar sugar, looks in every respect the same as
that extracted from the juice of the grape. The re
finements of modern chemistry, however, have pointed
out several tests to distinguish one from the other.* And
in a beam of polarised light there is provided a test as
subtle as any contributed by the aid of chemistry. In
the instance of cane sugar, < the plane of polarisation
revolves to the right ; in grape sugar, it revolves to the
left. Of this subtle agent, Mrs Somerville remarks,
when stating this interesting fact, that " it surpasses the
power even of chemical analysis in giving certain and
direct evidence of the similarity or difference existing in
the molecular constitution of bodies, as well as of the
permanency of that constitution, or of the fluctuations to
which it may be liable." f The same delicate test of
polarisation enables us to distinguish reflected light, such
as the moon's, from the light which issues from a self-
luminous body, like Sirius. 'But in all these instances,
the ultimate rationale of its indications still remains
veiled in impenetrable darkness ; and with it, any know
ledge of the internal substance of matter.
It is, however, in the mysterious facts to which
chemists have given the names of Isomorphism, Isomer-
* Brande's Lectures on Organic Chemistry, p. 153.
*t Connexion of Physical Sciences, § xxii. p. 214.

40 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
ism, and Aflotropism, that we perceive the most direct
and remarkable contribution of Modern Scientific re
search to the defence of Catholic Revelation. Chemistry
enables us to penetrate further than any other science
into the secret operations of Nature ; and strange insight
has been thus obtained into the identity of substance
under two or more external appearances ; and of the
existence of two or more substances of distinct character,
under identical appearances. A few words will not be
idly devoted to a description of these terms, and of the
results associated with them.
Isomorphism expresses the phenomenon in crystallisa
tion, established by Gay Lussac, and Mitscherlich, of
different compounds, assuming the same crystalline form.
The generally received law of this process had hitherto
been, that the same substances invariably crystallise in
forms belonging to one system, different substances, in
forms belonging to another. Cases had indeed been
observed, before the discovery of Isomorphism, in which
the same element had been seen to crystallise in two
forms, belonging to different systems, not geometrically
connected. Sulphur, for instance, crystallising from its
solution in the bisulphuret of carbon, assumes a geome
trically different crystalline form from sulphur when
melted by heat, and allowed to consolidate as it cools.
But these and a few other similar cases had been ex
plained, as depending on a different arrangement of the
particles, due most probably to a difference in the tem-

ISOMORPHISM. 41
perature during the operation. They were not thought
to interfere with the general law of the same substance
always assuming the same crystalline form. The two
eminent philosophers just mentioned, ascertained beyond
a doubt that, in many instances, compound substances in
the process of crystallising, assume the same or a cognate
form, though their elements are totally different. Thus
chloride of sodium, (sea salt,) sulphate of alumina and
potash, (alum,) and many other compound substances,
equally dissimilar, crystallise in the form of the cube and
its congeners. Other crystalline forms also are found to
be common to many differently constituted compounds.
" To these groups of analogous elements," says Professor
Gregory, from whose work, On Inorganic Chemistry, we
have abridged this account, " the name of Isomorphous
groups has been given, as there is every reason to believe
that as elements they possess the same form ; and the
phenomena , of identical form in compounds of different
but analogous composition, have received the name of
Isomorphism. Two elements are said to be isomorphous,
which either crystallise in the same form, or may be sub
stituted for each other in their compounds, equivalent for
equivalent, (the other elements remaining unchanged,)
without affecting the form of the compound. We can
hardly doubt, that not only the salts, but the acids are
really isomorphous, and would be found so, if we could
obtain them all in crystals; and we have the same
reason to conclude that the elements of these acids are

42 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
also isomorphous ; that arsenic and phosphonis, sulphur
and selenium, for example, crystallise in the same form."*
The converse of this phenomenon is also included
among the discoveries of modern science; the same
substance is sometimes observed to crystallise in two
different forms, not geometrically allied ; and the occur
rence of this new exception to the received law of
crystallisation is called Dimorphism.
Isomerism is the term employed to represent another
exceptional class of facts, observed by later chemists, to
interfere with the general rule, that analogy or similarity
of composition implies analogy in form and external
properties. Two or more compounds, formed of the
same elements, in the same relative proportions, and
having, therefore, the same composition in 100 parts, are
often found entirely distinct and unlike in all their
properties. Such bodies are called Isomeric. " The
discovery of Isomerism," says the same eminent chemist,"
" however unexpected, is entirely consistent with the
atomic theory, of which it is merely a special case.
Isomerism is of very frequent occurrence among organic
compounds, owing, no doubt, to their unusually large
atomic weights ; since the numerous atoms of the ele
ments afford much scope for isomeric modifications ; and,
doubtless, this principle plays an important part in the
processes of organic life and growth, as well as in decay."*.
* Inorganic Chemistry, Ed. 1853 ; pp. 38 et seq.
t lb. p. 43, 44.

ALLOTROPISM. 43
More remarkable than all of these exceptions to
hitherto established laws, is the discovery of the existence
of simple elements under totally dissimilar forms. Thus
sulphur exists under three distinct and incompatible
forms, or modifications, called Allotropic. Carbon, like
wise in three; the diamond, which is crystallised in
octohedrons, and is limpid and transparent; graphite,
which is black, opaque, and crystallised in prisms ; and
common charcoal, lamp-black, etc., which is black and
quite amorphous. Phosphorus has two allotropic forms ;
one crystallised, white and transparent, and easily set on
fire; the other, deep reddish-brown, amorphous, and
inflamed with much less ease. Each of these elementary
bodies thus assumes appearances as dissimilar as if they
were totally different bodies, possessed of a physical
character quite unlike each other. Well may Professor
Gregory, after this summary of the subject, add, " The
occurrence of such marked differences in the properties
of elementary bodies is very remarkable, and of great
interest in reference to the molecular constitution of
matter ; but the subject has' not yet been fully investi
gated."* The speculations of another very distinguished chemist,
Professor Faraday, in this field of recent observation, are
worthy of place in this collective testimony of modern
science, to the imperfect acquaintance with the ultimate
* Inorg. Chemistry, pp. 44, 45.

44 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
constitution of material substance, attainable by any
amount of study of its external properties or appearances,
" There was a time," says this eminent philosopher, "and
that not long ago, when it was held among the funda
mental doctrines of chemistry, that the same body always
manifested the same chemical qualities ; excepting only
such variations as might be due to the three conditions of
solid, liquid, and gas. This was held to be a canon of
chemical philosophy, as distinguished from alchemy;
and a belief in the possibility of transmutation was held
to be impossible, because at variance with this funda
mental tenet. But we are now conversant with many
examples to the contrary ; and, strange to say, no less
than four of the non-metallic elements, namely, oxygen,
sulphur, phosphorus, and carbon, are subject to this
modification. The train of speculation which this con
templation awakens within us, is extraordinary. If the
condition of aflotropism were alone confined to compound
bodies, that is to say, to bodies made up of two or more
elements, we might easily frame a plausible hypothesis
to account for it ; we might assume that some variation
had taken place in the arrangements of their particles.
But when a simple body, such as oxygen, is concerned,
this kind of hypothesis is no longer open to us ; we have
only one kind of particle to deal with ; and the theory of
altered position is no longer applicable. In short, it does
not seem possible to imagine a rational hypothesis to
explain the condition of aflotropism, as regards simple-,

PROGRESS OF ENQUIRY. 45
bodies. We can only accept it as a fact, not to be
doubted, and add the discovery to that long list of truths
which start up in the field of every science, in opposition
to our most cherished theories, and long received
convictions."* Those persons who have resisted the evidence of
Catholic revelation on the prima facie ground, that
sound philosophy and a knowledge of the physical
phenomena of nature are directly opposed to some of
its doctrines, must begin, we should think, to feel their
position a little less impregnable, than it seemed before
such sentiments as these were warranted by the actually
established facts of modern science. With such evidence
of its recent fruits, we may be well satisfied to watch
with interest and congratulation the progress of philoso
phical enquiry, conducted in such a spirit ; not so much
for our own sakes, to whom, indeed, no analogies afforded
by any human science could add anything in the way of
confirmation to what we have been taught by divine
testimony, transmitted through the Church of Christ to
our remote age ; but for the sake of the erring and the
doubting among the intellectual minds of our fellow-
countrymen ; with the hope that their attention might be
arrested and turned in the direction plainly enough indi
cated by such analogies. With one more extract, we
must take leave of Professor Faraday's highly interesting
* Lectures on Non-Metallic Elements, pp. 115, 116.

46 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
volume ; only begging as many of our readers as are
interested in such pursuits, to purchase it, and study it
for themselves. After pointing out the difference be
tween common and allotropic phosphorus, he continues :
" We can scarcely imagine to ourselves a more complete
opposition- of qualities than is here presented in these two
conditions of phosphorus ; an opposition not limited by
merely physical manifestations of density or crystallo-
graphic form, but recognisable through all the phases of
solution, thermal demeanour, and physiological effect.
The metamorphosis has, in fact, been so complete, that
we can only demonstrate the allotropical substance to be
phosphorus, by reducing it to its original state, and sub
jecting it to ordinary tests. If the forces determining its
constitution had been so balanced that the power of re
duction were denied to us, then the substance we now
call allotropic phosphorus must necessarily, according to
the strictest propriety of logic, have been admitted to be
not phosphorous, but some other body. It is impossible,
rationally, to deny that such permanent incontroverti-
bility may not lie within the power of natural laws to
effect. That we are not aware of such an example, cannot
be accepted as a proof of its non-existence ; and analogy,
the guidance to which we refer, when direct testimony
fails, is in favour of the affirmative." * From the great
powers of analysis at the command of this distinguished

* Lectures, etc., pp. 42, 43.

DIFFICULTIES OF REVELATION. . 47
physicist, directed as much by the courage as by the
wisdom and the candid spirit of true philosophy, it is
impossible to say what farther insight into the constitu
tion of matter may not hereafter be obtained. Such an
instance is surely of itself a full justification of our san
guine hopes for the future of science, in its relation to
what has been revealed by eternal and unchanging
Truth. Rather by way of indication than of summary of the
reflections suggested by these enquiries, we would ask,
How is it that the almost illimitable extension of gross
material elements should be accepted without hesitation,
while the possibility of the spiritual and glorified body of
the Lord existing, without division or multiplication of
itself, in every Catholic tabernacle, and also in heaven, is
regarded as so wildly impossible, and even monstrous a
conception, as to be scouted at the bare mention of it?
When philosophy expects us to believe that black,
crumbling charcoal, and the hard, shining diamond, are
one and the same simple substance, why should it be
thought in the nature of things so incredible as at once
to preclude all further examination of the evidence on
which it rests, that the substance of the Child of Beth
lehem, of the Risen and Ascended Lord, and of the Most
Holy Eucharist, are one and the same. We are far from
saying that the mode of existence is the same in all these .
instances ; we only claim for Revelation what is conceded
to Science ; that appearances should not be held, in

48 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
limine, conclusive of the question, nor be allowed to
outweigh or prejudice other evidence*; for in every pro
vince of the universe of knowledge things are not what
they seem. If what exists, or may exist, is to be limited
by what human organs of sense can perceive, the boun
daries of knowledge shrink into the narrowest compass :
the eye and the ear of an infant are enthroned as the
judges of the constitution of nature ; discovery and the
progress of science are no more, or would never have
been ; mankind would yet be sunk in the imbecility of
its primitive ignorance.
III. Next to the fallacious testimony of the human
senses, and the hidden nature of material substance, the
subtle influences at work in the physical world seem very
remarkably to indicate some curious analogies between
the constitution of matter in its finer forms, and the nature
of spiritual agencies. Recent analysis of the solar beam,
for instance, has revealed rays hitherto unknown, because
invisible to the acutest vision, unaided by the appliances
of science, and for long concealed even from its piercing
scrutiny, but yielding at last to the refinements of modern
investigation. These invisible rays have been proved to
exercise most important functions in nature ; in the ger
mination and vegetation of plants, and other widely mul
tiplied physical processes. There are few who have not
heard much of the magnetic and electric currents which
permeate every portion of the surface of the globe, and its

SUBTLE AGENCIES. ' 49
surrounding atmosphere ; but we imagine that not so
many are aware of the powerful influence which they
possess in the economy of our planet. " There is strong
presumptive evidence," says Mrs Somerville, "of the
influence of the electric and magnetic currents on the
formation and direction of the mountain masses and
mineral veins ; but their slow persevering action on the
ultimate atoms of matter has been placed beyond a
doubt by the formation of rubies, and other gems, as
well as various other mineral substances, by voltaic
electricity." * And, in another place, in the same in
structive work, she remarks, that " it would be difficult
to follow the rapid course of discovery through the com
plicated mazes of magnetism and electricity ; the action of
the electric current on the polarised sun-beam, one of the
most beautiful of modern discoveries, leading to relations
hitherto unsuspected between that power and the com
plex assemblage of visible and invisible influences on
solar light, by one of which nature has recently been
made to paint her own likeness." * These influences,
for all their subtlety, have a real, appreciable existence,
and fulfil a definite and beneficent end. A curious
example of the subserviency of the invisible magnetic
current to the wants of man, is mentioned by Humboldt
as having occurred to himself, in one of his voyages off

* Physical Geography, II., chap. xxii. p. 92.
j- lb., II., xxxiii. p. 400, 401.

50 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
the west coast of South America. Bad weather had pre
vailed for several days, so as to shut out all view of land,
or of the sun and stars. The crew were in expectation of
making a particular port on that coast ; on consulting his
dip-needle, the .scientific passenger discovered that the
ship had passed the latitude of its destined port; the
ship's course was altered, and much delay and, probably,
danger avoided.* Nor are the agencies destructive to
human life less subtle or recondite. Various miasmata
of a pestilential character defy every refinement of chemi
cal analysis to detect the cause of their mischievous opera
tion, or the difference of their elementary constitution
from that of pure and wholesome air. The most univer
sal, and, as far as our knowledge serves, the most impor
tant of all physical influences, that of gravitation, is also
the subtlest and most occult ; traversing the vast regions
of space with instantaneous speed, and pervading the
remotest fields of the great universe of matter ; penetra
ting without sensible interval of time to distances far
beyond the utmost reach of human thought, with a force
which maintains the stars of heaven in their courses, and
gives stability to every known material system.
If these occult agencies in the material world are recog
nised as fulfilling their mission, for all their secrecy and
subtlety, or rather, by means of these very characteristics,
why is the possibility of a hidden yet efficient agency in

* Cosmos. I., 171; III., 139.

SPACE AND TIME. 51
the spiritual world denounced as a heresy against com
mon sense and sound philosophy? The physical system
of things has its great laboratory of decomposition and
reconstruction kept in operation by these unseen influen
ces;' it is indebted to them for the maintenance of its
existence. Science rejoices to measure them by their
admirable results, to detect their operations in their
sensible effects. Why must the. Sacramental system
revealed in the spiritual world be with equal justice
refused its claim to an agency hardly more subtle?
Philosophers admit the truth of observations in these
occult natural agencies, and have no doubt of their real
existence; why do they so contemptuously regard the
result of our observations in those which are secret and
spiritual, when our observations are as numerous, and
their evidence as good ?
IV. The whole question of the relation of Space and Time
becomes one of vast interest and importance, in connexion
with a common objection made to the possibility of our hold
ing communication with the saints and angels in heaven,
as Catholics are taught to believe they may. Across a
space of such unknown vastness, it is alleged, that the
idea of transmitting a wish or a prayer is contrary to every
principle .of philosophy. Now, assuming, what indeed
has never been proved, that the heaven of the blessed
is as remote from our daily path as some maintain it to
be, and without entering here into the abstract question

52 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
as to whether the idea of Space or of Time is the older
and simpler, some considerations are suggested by the
study of modern scientific principles, which may throw
light on the objection just stated, and may help us to
ascertain its real worth.
It is evident that Time and Space may be made a
measure of each other. The distance from one point
in Space to another, may be expressed in so many units
of Time, say a minute, an hour, or a day, required
to traverse the intervening distance at a given velocity.
Hence, if velocity of motion from point to point be repre
sented by the simple formula of %£, we obtain two other
formulas representing Time and Space, respectively, in
terms of each other. Thus, if Velocity = Space ;
Time;
Then, Time = Space;Velocity;
and Space = Time x Velocity*
There is a little instrument much valued by philosophical
observers, but of no great intricacy in itself, which is at
once an unerring measure of Space and Time ; we mean
a common pendulum oscillating seconds in a given lati
tude, say of London, at a given level, say of the sea,

* For example, call Velocity 40 miles an hour, and Time 10
hours ; then Space = 40 x 10 = 400 miles ; or call Space 400
miles, Velocity being the same ; then Time = ^ = 10 hours.

SECONDS PENDULUM. 53
other conditions, as of the thermometer, etc., being the
same. This instrument, beating seconds, is an invariable
measure of length; in the latitude of London, for
example, at the level of the sea, with thermometer at 62»
Fahr. it is invariably 39'1393 inches long. And,
conversely, provide such an instrument of the length
just mentioned, and set it a-going ; its oscillations will
exactly measure out one second of time. Further, as a
measure of length, it enables us to ascertain the weight
of a cubic inch of water, in parts of a pound troy, whence
the imperial standards of weight and capacity are derived.
Hence a pendulum is a constant representative of space,
in its length ; and of time, in its oscillation. At any
point on the surface of the globe, a rod of a cer
tain given length will invariably, in similar circumstan
ces, beat seconds; and a rod, beating seconds as it
swings, will invariably measure a certain fixed length,
according to the latitude. Why it does so, does not
enter into our argument now ; it is enough that the fact
is ascertained, and is one of the very commonest applica
tion to practice. Every good house-clock is evidence of
it. In the same town, for instance, the secorids' pendu
lums of all regularly-going clocks are of equal length to
the minute fraction of an inch ; and all pendulums, of the
same length exactly, keep the same time exactly. In
other words, Space is made a measure of Time, and
Time is a measure of Space.
We said, just now, that Space may be represented E

54 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
in terms of Time, and Time in those of Space, the rate of
Velocity being given. London is said to be ten hours
from Edinburgh, when the transit is made at the rate of
forty miles an hour. " As long as it would take to go
to London," may be given as an expression equivalent to
ten hours, at the same rate of motion. But vary that
rate, and the terms used instantly represent very variable
quantities. Ten hours from London, at the rate of a
pedestrian, travelling his four miles an hour, represent
an insignificant distance of only forty miles; " as long as
it would take to go to London," now expresses a period
of a hundred hours, or more than four days. But take
the wings of light, and instantly the distance supposed,
if expressed in terms of time, dwindles to a minute, por
tion of a second ; even this is long, if you measure the
space by the flash transmitted along the electric wire.
Leaving the comparatively insignificant spaces on the
surface of the globe for those vaster distances which
divide planet from planet, and from the sun; the time
of 8 minutes 3-3 seconds, which the solar light takes to
travel from its source to our globe, may be taken as an
expression of its distance from that luminary. Nay,
there is a rate of velocity surpassing all these, bridging
over the vast space of Neptune's orbit, for example, or the
vaster diameter of a comet's path, in a unit of time too
minute for the subtlest human instruments or calcula
tions to appreciate. We mean the force or influence of
gravitation, which, ever since the first moment when the

GRAVITATION INSTANTANEOUS. 55
sun and the planets were created, has been passing
instantaneously from the centre of the solar system to
every part, even the most distant of his wide empire,
and back again from its farthest point to his centre.
Now it is evident that if you undertake to express the
distance of sun from planet in terms of the time, at this
rate of velocity, it is reduced to nothing. The sun is as
effectually present, for instance, in his all-important
gravitating influence, at every instant of time, in the
planet Neptune, nearly three thousand millions of miles
away, as the hand of the school-boy is present at the end
of his sling, while he whirls it round his head, and retains
the stone in its place by the string. Cut the string, and
the stone flies off; suspend for an instant the influence,
or force, or attraction, or whatever you please to call it,
which binds Neptune to the sun, and he flies off in a path
more eccentric than any comet's.
There are two ways of spanning distance; one by
actual, bodily transit ; another by the transmission of an
impulse or wave, propagated and repeated along the
space intervening, in some medium more or less mobile
or subtle. The planetary motions are good examples of
the actual translation of bodies through space : this earth
of ours sweeping along, in its orbit round the sun, at a
' rate of something like nineteen miles in a second, or
68,000 miles in an hour, besides its rotatory motion on
its axis of 24,000 every day. The planet Venus exceeds

56 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
this velocity, travelling at the rate of 80,000 miles an
hour; while Mercury in the same time, accomplishes
109,360 miles. Even this inconceivable velocity is far
surpassed by the comet of 1843, which, with a tail
two millions of miles long, and a nucleus apparently
larger than our globe, swept round the sun, at its
perihelion, at the rate of 366 miles, or nearly the
distance from Edinburgh to London, in one second*
Velocities of impulse exceed those of bodily transla
tion ; that is, supposing we may class among examples
of wave motion the transmission of sound, light, elec
tricity, and perhaps gravitation. Dr Lardner mentions
his having, on one occasion, in company with Leverrier,
written a message by electric telegraph, at a distance of
more than a thousand miles, and at the rate of 19,500
words in an hour, or of 5"5 words in a second.f At a
similar distance, and indeed at a much greater, a steel
bar may be made to vibrate fourteen thousand times in a
second.| Such a velocity evidently far surpasses the
power of human comprehension. Even in regard to the
less rapid transmission of light, the eminent astronomer
Bessel candidly confesses that " the distance which light
traverses in a year is not more appreciable to us, than

* Outlines of Astronomy, § 590, 593.
f Museum of Science and Art, part viii. p. 116.
X lb. part ix. p. 201.

WHAT IS DISTANCE ? 57
the distance which it traverses in ten years. Therefore,
every endeavour must fail to convey to the mind any
idea of a magnitude exceeding what is accessible on the
earth."* Now, even supposing that we are acquainted with all
'the methods which exist in nature for spanning vast
distances, and if, as we have shown, distance may be
expressed in terms of the time taken to travel over it, or
transmit a communication across it, the thought forcibly
occurs, what is distance, if viewed apart from the means
at disposal for overpassing it. A friend in the next
room is not nearer us than another in the next continent,
if in the same interval of time we can communicate
with either. To be sure, one of them we might see
sooner than the other, but sight is no necessary means of
communicating ; the blind are for ever debarred from it.
Man can communicate with man, even materially, with
out either sight or hearing ; and far beyond the range of
either. But who shall be bold enough to say that other and
subtler methods of communication may not exist in the
material universe ? or that the world of spirit has none
more vivid than those subtle currents which permeate
the world of matter. To a generation or two ago, the
means of transmitting intelligence, which are now quite
familiar to us, would have seemed fabulous; a little

* Quoted, Cosmos, iii. 35.

58 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
further back in the history of Europe, their discovery
might have involved the penalty due to witchcraft. If
the passage of a material impulse across the wide orbit
of Neptune unites him intimately at every moment with
the sun, is there any distance that can be said absolutely
to present an impassable gulf to the intercourse of spirit
with spirit ? Or, can it be said that some such means of
communication do not, and cannot exist, because human
senses do not perceive them, nor human intelligence
comprehend them ? Transmission by impulse surpasses
in velocity every known instance of actual, bodily trans
lation : why must what we yet know of the former be
fixed as the limit of what is possible ? Why may there
not be some means of communication surpassing in
swiftness the flash of the lightning, or the influence of
gravitation, as far as it exceeds the sweep of the comet,
or the slow progress of the pedestrian ? Why must it be
pronounced an idle dream, that we may hold one end of
a chain of impulses vibrating from earth to heaven,
lying along the future track of our emancipated and
purified spirits ?
And pursuing analogy one step further, it is no severe
demand on the imagination to conceive that the universal
presence of God, which embraces and interpenetrates
the immensity of space, may be to the subtle and vivid
impulses from spirit to spirit, what, in another order of
things, the elastic ether of the planetary and sidereal
spaces is to vibrations of material creation ; that it may

PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY. 59
fulfil for those, similar functions of' propagation and
transmission. In him who is everywhere, at every
instant, and for ever, intelligence may easily be conceived
to pass between the remotest points of space, with a
speed not slower than co-existence itself; for in him there
is no passage or motion either in time or space ; he is the
one indivisible eternal, Here and Now.
V. We are forcibly struck, while referring to the
discoveries of modern science, with the very slender
ground on which the mass even of educated persons
accept their most astonishing and improbable results.
How many persons of all those who talk, with much
fluency and show of knowledge, on subjects of physical
science, have tested, by their own observation, the truth
of one of the phenomena which they converse about?
How many persons, for instance, who tell us that light
and heat in the same ray have been separated, have
actually proved it by personal experiment, or even seen it
proved by another? How many persons are there at
this moment in England and Scotland who have verified
by their own observation and calculation the size and
figure of the earth, or its distance from the sun and
moon ; not to mention o,ther more intricate problems in
physics, of which they have no personal knowledge
whatever? The mass of mankind are content to receive
these things on the sufficient testimony of men compe
tent, or whom they deem competent, to inform them on

60 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
such subjects. Here, at least, in the domain of science,
there is no exaltation of private judgment, no rebellion
against scientific authority ; and it is a wise and a just
arrangement that it should be so. There are not many
men, in any age, furnished with the intellectual outfit
necessary for such verifications ; a life time would not be
sufficient to enable one man to accomplish them all. Sir
John Herschel has the following admirable remarks,
which are very much to our present purpose. " What
mere assertion will make any one believe, that in one
second of time, in one beat of a pendulum of a clock, a
ray of light travels over 192,000 miles, and would there
fore perform the tour of the world in about the same time
that it requires to wink with our eye-fids, and in much
less than a swift runner occupies in taking a single
stride ? What mortal can be made to believe, without
demonstration, that the sun is almost a million times
larger than the earth? and, that, although so remote
from us, that a cannon ball shot directly towards it
would be twenty years in reaching it, yet it affects the
earth by its attraction in an inappreciable instant of
time? But what are these to the astonishing truths
which modern optical enquiries have disclosed, which
teach us that every point of a medium through which a
ray of light passes, is affected with a succession of
periodical movements, regularly occurring at equal inter
vals, no less than 500 millions of millions of times in a
single second? That it is by such movements, com-

PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 61
municated to the nerves of our eyes, that we see ; nay,
more, that it is the frequency of their recurrence which
affects us with the sense of the diversity of colour. That,
for instance, in acquiring the sensation of redness, our
eyes are affected 482 millions of millions of times ; of
yellowness, 542 millions of millions of times; and of
violet, 707 millions of millions of times in a second.
These are, nevertheless, conclusions to which any one
may most certainly arrive, who will only be at the
trouble of examining the chain of reasoning by which
they have been obtained."
If Theology, or the science of God and his revealed
will, is, as might have been expected, not less, but more
recondite than any other, as its objects are vaster, more
remote from human understanding, than those of any
other science ; surely, on philosophical principles, it is not
unreasonable that authority should have its weight here,
also, and equal measure at least be dealt to all. Yet the
modern world is agreed in ridiculing and denouncing the
principle of authority in religious matters, as the bane of
human society; and in exalting prjvate judgment and
opinion, as the Christian's only ultimate, appeal in the
matter. Apply this principle of independence to any
other science, to any subject of human knowledge, or to
any object of intelligent enquiry ; and a race of sciolists,
pedants, and sceptics would inevitably result. The autho
rity of great names in science would lose all its just
honour ; there would be no system, no progress in obser-

62 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
vations ; thousands of persons, incompetent to do more
than deny the conclusions of the learned and the able,
would refuse their assent to these, till the impossible time
should arrive, when, by actual and personal investigation
they should' be pleased to pronounce judgment on the
accuracy of these conclusions ; life would be consumed in
negation ; mutual trust, and deference to superior know
ledge and capacity would be annihilated. Whether in
this incompatibility of private judgment with its best
interests, and even with its stability, Revelation is very
different from Science, we leave to the study of our read
ers, and to their observation of the fine gradations of inde
pendent judgment which conduct from Luther to Strauss ;
the former of whom began by denying the Pope, and the
latter ended by impugning the divinity of Jesus Christ.
VI. The principle of authority and its correlative, sub
ordination and dependence, is represented, in a remarka
ble manner, in the constitution of Physical Nature, espe
cially in the province of Astronomy. It is a remark of
Dr Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise, * " that the re
lations among the planets is uniformly, not co-ordinate,
but subordinate. Satellites are subject to the influence
of their primaries ; primaries to that of the central sun ;
the central sun itself to a higher and more distant centre;
in a sublimer material hierarchy, ascending in gradations of

* Bohn's Edition, p. 175.

LAW OF SUBORDINATION. 63
immense numerical magnitude ; and thus while insuring
the stability of the whole planetary and stellar systems,
ultimately, as every analogy teaches us, making one
grand centre of revolution and subordination, at a point
of space whose distance we cannot even imagine." In his
remarks on the Third Law of Kepler, namely, that the
squares of the times of planetary revolution round the
sun, are proportional to the cubes of their mean distances
from that central luminary, Sir J. Herschel has the fol
lowing pertinent observations. " Of all the laws to
which induction from pure observation has ever conducted
man, this third law, as it is called, of Kepler, may justly
be regarded as the most remarkable, and the most preg
nant with important consequences. When we contem
plate the constituents of the planetary system, from the
point of view which this relation affords us, it is no longer
mere analogy which strikes us, — no longer a general re
semblance among them, as individuals independent of
each other, and circulating about the sun, each according
to its own peculiar nature, and connected with it by its
own peculiar tie. The resemblance is now perceived to
be a true family likeness ; they are bound up in one
chain ; — interwoven in one web of mutual relation and
harmonious agreement, — subjected to one pervading in
fluence, which extends from the centre to the furthest
limits of that great system ; of which all of them, the
earth included, must henceforth be regarded as mem-

64 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
bers." * The remarks of the same great philosopher on the
systems of Double Stars, in a later part of his work on As
tronomy, bear still more directly on the view we are pro
posing. " It is not with the revolutions of bodies of a
planetary or cometary nature round a solar centre, that we
are now concerned ; it is with that of sun round sun, — each,
perhaps, at least in some binary systems, where the indivi
duals are very remote, and their period of revolution very
long, accompanied with its train of planets and their
satellites, closely shrouded from our view by the splen
dour of their respective suns, and crowded into a space
bearing hardly a greater proportion to the enormous inter
val which separates them, than the distance of the satel
lites of our planets from their primaries, bear to their dis
tances from the sun itself. A less distinctly characterised
subordination would be incompatible with the stability of
their systems, and with the planetary nature of their
orbits. Unless closely nestled under the wing of their
immediate superior, the sweep of another sun in its peri
helion passage round their own, might carry them off, or
whirl them into orbits utterly incompatible with the con
ditions necessary for the existence of their inhabitants.
It must be confessed that we have a strangely wide and
novel field for speculative excursions, and one which it is
not easy to avoid luxuriating in."t

* Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix. § 488.
f lb., chap. xvi. § 847.

WHAT IS LAW? 65
VII. The phenomena of nature suggest an interesting
view of Law in general, which we shall in a few words
faintly outline. It is constantly urged as an objection to
the doctrine of Revelation regarding the Blessed Eucha
rist, for example, that it is contrary to philosophy, in as
much as it assumes and implies the suspension of a uni
versal law, which connects certain definite accidents or
qualities of matter, invariably with their corresponding
substance ; for in the Holy Eucharist the properties, quali
ties, or accidents of one substance are attached to another.
By a " Law'" in Physics no more can be understood,
than a deduction from a sufficiently large series of ob
served facts, establishing from long, and careful, and ex
tensive observation, - a uniformity of result in the same
given circumstances. Some laws are said to be " empiri
cal," which though derived from careful noting of in
variably recurring phenomena, enunciate no principle, or
rationale, but merely the numerical result of observation.
Thus Kepler's three laws of planetary motion, and Bode's
law of planetary distances from the sun, are instances of
law simply and confessedly empirical. Newton's law of
gravitation is said to furnish the principle which is in
volved in Kepler's formula of details ; because once
Newton's law is admitted as governing planetary motion,
what Kepler observed of the movements of the planets,
can be deduced by calculation. It would be per
haps more philosophical, in the present state of our
knowledge, to regard even the most apparently elemen-

66 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
tary and fundamental law as only empirical, and the ulti
mate principle as lying deeper than any known law. In this
view, a law like that of Newton's demonstrating, would
be said to lie only one step nearer the ultimate principle
than the earlier and more empirical. Probably there is
no ultimate principle nearer than the divine volition.
In fact, the law of gravitation is now regarded by philo
sophers as something short of the ultimate solution of
material attraction and repulsion ; they are groping their
way, at this moment, to something more universal than
that law, as may be gathered from the following observa
tions of Sir J. Herschel. "No matter from what ulti
mate cause the power which is called gravitation origi
nates, — be it a virtue lodged in the sun, as its receptacle,
or be it pressure from without, or the resultant of many
pressures or solicitations of unknown fluids, magnetic or
electric ethers, or impulses— still when finally brought
under our contemplation, and summed up into' a single
resultant energy ,— its direction is from many points on
all sides, towards the sun's centre."*
Whence is this uncertainty about the probable nature
of this force ? Because, universal as it has been thought,
it fails in certain circumstances, as in some electrical con
ditions, and within very small distances ; when the rela
tion of material particles to one another is one of- repul
sion, and not of attraction. Take another law, as it is
* Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix. § 490.

LAW HAS EXCEPTIONS. 67
called", that fluids will always rise as high as their source,
and no higher. The phenomena of capillary attraction
prove that this law does not hold in all cases. The
chemical law of atomic combination is sometimes found
signally to fail. Physical laws, therefore, like these, are
good only as far as they go ; there are limits to their ap
plication. Why may not this be true in regard to the law which
is said to militate against the doctrine of the Blessed
Eucharist? It may hold good for a thousand instances,
and may fail in the next ; like other physical laws ; and
that instance may be the very one of this revealed doc
trine. Exceptio probat regulam is a sound rule in a cer
tain sense ; it tells the other way, however, when the
absolute impossibility even of an exception is maintained
in regard to any physical law.
But, in fact, we see that this law of relation between
quality, or accident, and substance, is very uncertain in
1 its application to many conditions of matter. Modern
discovery has much diminished the number of the pro
perties, or qualities, of matter ; and has proved that even
these are by no means constant in the same substance, nor
always variable in different substances ; so that one sub
stance often looks to every sense, like another, wholly dif
ferent ; and " behaves," like it, in a variety of ways ; while
the same substance has sometimes more than one mode of
appearance. There is, in fact, no law of uniformity be
tween material substance and its properties ; if there is

68 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
any law on the subject, it is the other way ; and the
result of discovery seems clearly to demonstrate that we
know absolutely nothing of the nature of substance.
VIII. Closely connected with this view of Law, is
the interesting subject of Secular Variations, observed
throughout nature, but especially in the motions and
temporary disturbances in the heavenly spaces, and
which afford, in fact, the best evidence of the stability
of the vast system of creation. A variation is observed
in the ellipticity of the earth's orbit, for instance, of
which one evident proof is the acceleration of the moon's
motion round her primary ; it might seem as if, at some
vastly remote period in future time, the total derange
ment of our planetary system must ensue ; but calcula
tion has assured us that there is a point, far short of that,
at which there will occur a change ; and in the lapse of
ages things will return to their original condition. Thus
beyond an exception to Law there is still Law existing
supreme, regulating the conditions and the term of such
exceptional existence. In a similar manner, the Law of
Storms, as it is called, establishes the dominion of de
finite order even in the confusion and mad fury of the
tropical hurricane ; so definite, and so completely under
the control of observed rule, that navigators are provided
with certain instructions for evading the overwhelming
force of those terrible visitations. We think of these
cycles of apparent exception and departure from esta
blished order, in the physical world, when we hear

OUR KNOWLEDGE PROGRESSIVE. 69
objections made against this or that apparent anomaly
in the spiritual and moral government of God ; till the
principles and laws of one government are proved wholly
unlike those of the other, we imagine a secular variation
not impossible in the one, as it actually exists in the
other ; and we can endure even a temporary eclipse of the
outward glory of his Church, the prevalence of her enemies
against her, for a longer or a shorter time ; the exile of
her Chief Pastor ; the triumph of iniquity in her glorious
capital ; convinced that erratic trains of events like these
are subject to Law in the permission of him who governs
as he made the universe of matter and of mind, by an
act of his sovereign and omnipotent will.
IX. From what has preceded, one or two general
reflections occur to an intelligent mind, somewhat to this
effect. It seems that the horizon of science has never
been long stationary, and is now opening wider than at
any former period. Every science has passed through
many strange phases of empiricism, before reaching the
philosophical basis on which it now rests. All of them
are disclosing facts and analogies, undreamed of by our
grandfathers. A very few years make a book on Che
mistry or Physiology old and out of date. We are
posting on to further knowledge ; strange and unimagined
relations between matter and matter, and still stranger
between matter and mind, are no doubt awaiting the
detection of future discoverers; our children, or their

70 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
children, will know more than we. A single sentence of
Professor Faraday's reflections on the subject of Aflo
tropism, is sufficient, to open a wide view of the possible
career of science. " The philosopher ends;" he says, "by
asking himself the questions, In what does chemical
identity consist ? In what will these wonderful develop
ments of aflotropism end? Whether the so-called
chemical elements may not be, after all, mere allotropic
conditions of purer universal essences? Whether, to
renew the speculations of the alchemists, the metals may
be only so many mutations of each other, by the power of
science naturally convertible ? There was a time, when
this fundamental doctrine of the alchemists was opposed
to known analogies ; it is now no longer opposed to them,
but only some stages beyond their present development? '*
Is it safe to trust to what are considered to be indica
tions of physical truth in a contest with moral evidence,
when the limits of physical knowledge are so floating
and ill defined ? Is it safe to erect barriers of supposed
physical laws against the entrance of conviction regarding
the truths of Revelation, when recent discovery has
established so much that tells on the side of Faith ; when
it has overturned so many old philosophical objections to
it ; when future discovery may, and seems likely to push
the advantage of Revelation still further into the domain
of matter ; when its indications have so many analogies
'" Faraday's Lectures, pp. 105, 106.

OUR KNOWLEDGE VERY LIMITED. 71
to the doctrines of Revealed Truth? We are sure, at
least, that future discovery can take from us no advantage
which we at present derive from our knowledge of
physical laws; it cannot fail widely to extend that
advantage, by enlarging our acquaintance with the laws
of nature. X. The natural termination of our reflections is the
consideration of how short a way we yet see into the
constitution of Nature ; how far we are still from reaching
the secrets of her vast operations. " After all, what do
we see?" asks Admiral Smyth, in his Cycle of Celestial
Objects; "Both that wonderful (stellar and nebular)
universe, our own, and all which optical assistance has
revealed to us, may be only the outliers of a cluster,
immensely more numerous. The millions of suns we
perceive cannot comprise the Creator's universe. There
are no bounds to infinitude ; and the boldest views of the
elder Herschel only placed us as commanding a ken
whose radius is some 35,000 longer than the distance
of Sirius from us. Well might the dying Laplace exclaim,
' That which we know, is little ; that which we know not,
is immense.'"* If, on the one hand, the discoveries of
man in every department of material knowledge prove
him to be in genius and intelligence, only " a little lower
than the angels," the boundless expanse of undiscovered
"• Vol. ii- Bedford Catalogue, p. 303.

72 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
worlds of investigation in his own and in distant systems,
may well abate his enthusiasm, and make the greatest
philosopher acknowledge that we as yet know only in
part. If so, partial knowledge of the laws of divine govern
ment can never be a safe or a philosophical guide to
direct us, in accepting or rejecting whatever comes to us,
claiming to be from the Author and Sustainer of that
government, as Revelation does. It can never be safe,
even as a preliminary guide ; as an ultimate rule to test
the value of Revelation, it is totally disqualified. Till
we know all, we can say nothing of what is possible or
impossible, probable, or the reverse. We can understand
a person, to whom the claims of Revelation on his
assent were new and strange, hesitating to accept it at
all, till its credentials had been examined, and their
evidence ascertained; but once that process is con
cluded, and a Revelation established, we cannot under
stand a philosophical mind, in the elementary state of
human knowledge, proceeding to select from the sum
of Revealed Truth what seems to it intelligible, and
accepting that; while rejecting whatever it considers
to be the reverse, and maintaining that because it can
not comprehend the mysterious things of Revelation,
therefore they cannot be from God. The only course,
at once safe and philosophical, is to accept the whole of
what is presented to us, without questioning its coin
cidence, or otherwise, with our previous views of what

CONCLUSION. 73
is likely or befitting ; with our present notions of what
is intelligible. To our limited knowledge it may seem
in its doctrines unintelligible, imperfect, perhaps even
contradictory ; clouds of doubts may seem to hover over
it ; storms of conflicting principles, and laws, and assump
tions, subversive, as we think, of the course of Nature,
may now rage about its path. But ascend the mountain-
top, and the clouds are left far beneath ; the roaring of
the storm cannot be heard so high. Descend a little way
.into the deep, and the agitation of its surface ceases ;
silence, and order, and everlasting rest are established
there. So the deeper we penetrate into the knowledge
of God, as manifested in his material government, or the
higher we ascend in contemplating his modes of action in
nature, the nearer we shall approach to the vision of that
perfect harmony and nice adjustment of every part of his
vast creation, the full disclosure of which will recreate
our intelligence in the light of his Eternal Beauty. It
cannot be matter for wonder, then, that we rejoice at every
new step in science, at every discovery of the secret
powers of Nature. We welcome the advance of Physical
Science as a pioneer of the ultimately victorious progress
of Revealed Truth, which shall demonstrate its intimate
harmony with all that is known of the Divine operations
in the Constitution of Nature.
Meanwhile, we can afford to wait, " till the day break,
and the shadows flee away." The veil will one day be
withdrawn, and we shall see, eye to eye. Influences and

74 PHYSICAL SCIENCE, ETC.
agencies, which it has not yet been given to man even to
imagine, will then be disclosed, around us and within us;
as when the eyes of the prophet's servant were opened,
and he beheld his master surrounded with chariots of fire
and horses of fire. Things will then be seen, as they are,
in the day of the manifestation of the sons of God. We
can afford to wait for that day. We feel within us, al
ready, much that we cannot account for, on natural
principles ; strong presentiments, and instincts of the
supernatural and eternal order of things, are ever and
ever crossing our path, stirring us with strange and sud
den, and mysterious power ; disposing us for the revela
tions of the final day. A day of wonder ; a day of bene
diction ; but not for those who have refused to believe
because they could not see ; but for Christ's simple little
ones, who were content to believe, before, or without
seeing ; for whom it was enough that the Great Creator
had spoken to them by his Son, and since, by his Church;
more than enough, that, even here, they could recognise'
the subservience of philosophy to faith ; that they could
perceive " in outward and visible things the type and
evidence of those within the veil."

THE END.

INDEX.
Preliminary View of the Progress of Physical Science, since
A.D. 1800 — Its Relation to Revelation — Is it one of Hostility? or
of Subserviency ? — Revelation Defined — Galileo— Copernicus — Tes
timony of Brewster and Airy — Dr Butler's Argument, pages 6 — 18
§1. Empire of Senses restricted by Science — (1.) Limited Sus
ceptibility of each Organ — (2.) Sensations highly Complex — (3.)
Senses often Inoperative — (4.) Senses inadequate to convey Impres
sions of Distant and Occult Objects — (5.) Testimony of Senses
often Erroneous 18 — 32
§ II. Relation of Material Substance to its Qualities or Accidents
— By no means Constant and Unvarying — Colour — Form — Exten
sion — Weight — Mobility — Opacity — Phenomena of Isomorphism —
Isomerism — Allotropism — Testimony of Gregory and Faraday —
Argument applied to Revelation 32 — 48
§ III. Subtle Agencies recently made known — Invisible Solar
Rays — Electric and Magnetic Currents — Their important Functions
in Nature — Applied to the Sacramental System --> 48 — 51
§ IV. Time and Space — May be Mutually Expressed, each in
terms of the other — Pendulum — Velocity of Actual Transit — Of .
Transmission of an Impulse or Wave — Instances of either — Appli
cation to the Possibility of Communicating with the World of
Spirits. . 51—59
§ V. Deference of the Mass of Mankind to Authority on all
Subjects of Scientific Enquiry— Its Advantage and Necessity— Tes
timony of Sir J. Herschel — Why should Theology, and the Com
plex Question of the Evidence on which Revelation rests, be treated
otherwise ? _ - 59 — 62

76 INDEX.
§ VI. Principle of Subordination traced in the Constitution of
Material Nature — Testimony of Dr Whewell — and of Sir J.
Herschel pages 62 — 64
§ VII. Natilre of Physical Law — When is a Law empirical? —
Failure of every known Physical Law in some conditions 65 — 68
§ VIII. Secular Variations — Example — Law of Storms— Analogy
in the Moral World 68, 69
§ IX. Progressive Advancement of Science — No Step Final —
Views Changing as Facts are Accumulating — Science, therefore, an
Uncertain Guide to Truth 69—71
§ X. Human Knowledge very Limited — Objections against
Revelation dispelled by deeper insight into the Mysteries of Nature
— Faith and Patience must guide us till the Final Day, when all
will be disclosed 71 — end

ERRATA.
Page 29, line 2, after space, insert, to our globe, as it travels through space.
45, line 7, delete physical.
46, line 19, for phosphorous read phosphorus.
56, line 11, delete sound.
62, line 18, for physical read Blaleriul.

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