of action and delicacy are possessed during life, it is another consequence that the extinction of life is very speedily followed by decay.

The body then owes its delicacy to its chemically unstable nature; to that peculiar collocation of particles that would not naturally, and in virtue of their own forces, have united themselves together as we find them in the body.

183. To what, then, is due this peculiar grouping of particles in the living body?

We reply that it is, in one sense at least, derived from the food which is eaten. If animal food is eaten, it is of course derived from the body of the animal which is consumed. That animal may possibly have derived it from another animal, but more probably it has been derived in this case direct from the vegetable world. Ultimately, therefore, it is to this world that we must look as the source of that delicately constructed substance which plays such a wonderful and important part in the animal economy. If we go one link further back in the chain of causation, we shall be carried from the vegetable world to the sun as the great and ultimate physical source of that high-class energy and delicacy of construction which characterise vegetable products. It is, in truth, owing to the actinic rays of our luminary that vegetable tissue is manufactured in the leaves of plants, the carbonic acid of the air being decomposed, and oxygen given out, while the carbon, united with other substances, and modified thereby, is retained by the plant to form part of its substance, or perchance to become the food of animals.

184. We have now therefore arrived at the conclusion that the delicacy of construction which our frames require is ultimately derived from the sun, as far at least as the visible universe is concerned. If then we would reply to the

question of this chapter, whether or not there may be beings superior to man connected with this present universe, let us look abroad and endeavour to ascertain whether there be in this universe any other obvious process of delicacy besides that which characterises the bodies of animals like ourselves.

Now, it has been pointed out that, in the atmospheric changes of this world, and more particularly of the sun, we have processes of great delicacy. It is believed that the positions, of the planets Mercury and Venus, affect the behaviour of sun-spots, and thus determine the conditions of atmospheric changes on the surface of our luminary that are absolutely overwhelming in their magnitude. We have only to reflect that a large sun-spot might swallow up fifty planets like our earth, and that some of the currents connected with it move at the rate of 100 miles per second, in order to realise the enormous scale of these solar outbreaks. Again, it is believed that the state of the solar surface with regard to spots determines the storms of our earth, so that there are most hurricanes in the Indian Ocean as well as on the coast of America during years of maximum sun-spots.

But if such results are brought about by the relative positions of the planets of our system, it is evident that the cause is more analogous to the pulling of the trigger of a cannon ready to go off than to a downright blow. In fact, a vast transmutation of energy in the sun is brought about by some obscure and ill-understood but trivial cause connected with the position of the nearer planets of our system. We have here a case where the magnitude of the effect is out of all proportion to that of the antecedent; now this is, in other words, the definition of delicacy already given (Art. 179).

But, again, if delicacy of construction characterise the meteorological changes in the various members of our system, it is entirely absent from the orbital motions of these bodies. These want that great characteristic of delicacy, incalculability; for they are not only pre-eminently calculable, but are now calculated years beforehand as part of the regular business of the world. On the other hand, the meteorological changes of our earth and of the sun come upon us with all the abruptness characteristic of delicacy, and are eminently incalculable. The hurricane and the lightning flash are processes of Nature which man has in every age been prone to associate with personal intelligences. He has instinctively recognised the similarity between these abrupt and startling phenomena and the actions of an angry and powerful being.

185. It may no doubt be long since there has been anything like an extensive worship of the powers of nature amongst the civilised nations of the earth, but there may yet be found even at the present day, especially amongst imaginative races, and in wild and mountainous regions, a lingering belief that personal agents are concerned in the more startling natural phenomena.

Such a belief was extensively prevalent during the middle ages, and whole volumes might easily be filled with an account of medieval superstitions and legends relating to this subject, sometimes dark and terrible, and at other times possessing a peculiar and pathetic beauty which does not belong to anything else. The air, the earth, and the water have all been peopled with spirits; some of them friendly to man, some of them his deadly enemies. They are powerful, and conscious of their power, but at the same time profoundly and mournfully aware that they are with

out a soul. Their life depends, it may be, upon the continuance of some natural object, and hence for them there is no immortality. Sometimes, however, an elemental spirit procures a soul by means of a loving union with one of the human race, and the beautiful romance of Undine is built upon this fancy.

At other times the reverse happens, and the soul of the mortal is lost who, leaving the haunts of men, associates with these soulless but often amiable and affectionate beings. "The Forsaken Merman," by Matthew Arnold, expresses this fancy in a very beautiful and touching manner :"Children dear, was it yesterday

(Call once more) that she went away?

Once she sate with you and me

On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,

And the youngest sate on her knee.

She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,

When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.

She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea;
She said, 'I must go, for my kinsfolk pray

In the little grey church on the shore to-day.
"Twill be Easter time in the world-ah me!

And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.'
I said, 'Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayers and come back to the kind sea-caves.'
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?"

186. A conception, in some respects analogous to that now mentioned, but in other respects very different from it, is that which attributes a soul to the universe; and it has even been imagined that the whole visible universe forms, as it were, one gigantic brain.

Others again appear inclined to believe that there may be many cosmical intelligences, each embracing the whole universe, and therefore interpenetrating one another, and at

the same time taking part in its government by means of such processes of delicacy as those we have mentioned.

187. Now, before proceeding further in the discussion of these speculations, let us here state more definitely than we have yet done what is the real point in question.

It is not so much the possibility of the delicate processes of nature being directed by an intelligent agency; this is in reality a different question, and one which will be discussed in our concluding chapter. But the question now before us is, whether any such agency may be said to belong to the present visible universe?

To make our meaning clear: we know that we ourselves belong to the present visible universe. Again, there are many of us who believe that angelic intelligences are the ministers of God's providence. Now, whether this doctrine be true or not (and we are not now concerned about its truth), it is evident that such intelligences cannot be said to belong to the present physical universe. The organisation which they possess, and without which (Art. 61) we cannot imagine a finite intelligence to exist, is most assuredly nothing that can be perceived by our bodily senses, nor can we imagine that their existence is at all dependent on the fate of the visible universe; in fine, they do not belong to it.

Our present question, therefore, is whether we can associate the delicate cosmical processes of the visible universe with the operations of intelligences residing in this universe and belonging to it, and to this question we must assuredly give a negative reply.

188. We entertain no doubt that man and beings at least analogous to man represent the highest order of living things connected with the present visible universe.