The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1881-04-21

certainty, yearniDg for some, oven the least,
intellectual mote 10 dance In the sunbeam OF
crystalline truth, and thus mako visibly pos
tive VIVA. In tho Opaque makes us the sport
Of purest speculation. They have observed
In nature the unexceptional invariability OF
hor work in the regular procession OF organic
life, the steady and uniform tran'mutalion OF
material substances into new products, and
setting at defiance the doctrine OF spon'
taneous generation, whether we have
regard to the solar system that IS
beyond our tread, or to this little
sand hill of ours, this ripple on the ocean OF
eternity. They have observed that the inter-
calation of new organic molecule in liv-
ing being like the introduction of a new form
in the universal organic series is not by sud-
den intervention, but by the operation of a
primordial and unvarying law. What they
have noted in the music of the spheres, and
all that we know of them has substantiated
the law Of periodicity, and furnishes to US q
rhythm in the harmony of nature. They
have observed the regularity OF the tides
their diurnal ebb and flow, that Of the day
and nights procession, that OF the seasons,
that of accreton and denudation of the land,
as shown by the cycle of the years. And 30
ref Getting upon his own being, man witnesses
he same effects from like causes. He finds
the continuous interstitial deaths of his tissues
and all the other particlea of his body, that
his whole system is undergoing
disintegration, decay and restitution, not
by any motley march, but by
the regular funereal pulse beat, that
throbs against the muffled breast from birth
10 death. He discerns a periodicity in his
growth, in his sppetites, in bis sleeping, in
his fevers corresponding TO the days coming
and going, and he thus concludes that there
is the regularity of oscillation about his own
personal development that he finds through
out all the. world. From these and thousand
similar illustrations, he insists that the
gradually, the deliberateness, the uni
formity, the accuracy of the.whole course Of
nature, without exception, to day or in the
past, implies, yea asserts, procedure by pre-
conceived and unvarying law, and never by
momentary or sudden Intervention. He
therefore contends not only for the presi-
dency of such law, but for its continuous
presidency from the genesis of time
until the exodus thereof. He de-
duces that the conceded microcosmic
principle is not simply emblemstic, but COM
pletely applicable to the system of individul
al man from earliest cell conceptions to full
maturity, and final dissolution, and that the
sudden springiog into existence OF rose
bush from an acorn is no more extraordi.
nary event than an extraordinary divine
human nature. And yet who knows but
what there may be true resolution and full
reconciliation of that great question, that
o-day so puzzles the wisest and best disposed
of US? The incredulous king of Siam was
only representative when he denied that
water in England sometimes froze so hard
that it would hold the weight of a man.
Who, likewise, would not be prepared to
deny, if he did not know better, that the
featnered songster issued from the speckled
egg, rather than the tall outrageous tree
that grows from nut so similar in size
weight, shape and color with the egg? And
so with all the marvellous metamorphoses
that run through natures plan.