ns, the eclipse begins at the precise hour which he has
indicated. If the eclipse did not take place at the instant foreseen, no
one would suspect Nature of not following the course prescribed by the
directing intelligence; the inference would be that there had been a
fault in observation, or an error of figures on the part of the
astronomer.

When science, then, does its part well, the mind of man encounters
another mind which is governing the world and maintaining it in order.
The special science of nature stops there, as we shall explain further
on; but this is not all that man requires, when he makes use of all his
faculties. All is passing and changing in the domain of experience; and
reason seeks instinctively the cause of changeable facts in an
unchangeable Being, the cause of transient phenomena in an eternal
Being. Nature, therefore, does not suffice to account to us for itself.
It demands a power to direct it, an intelligence to regulate it; an
absolute eternal Being as its cause. This is what reason imperatively
requires; and when we possess the idea of God, nature reveals to us His
power and His wisdom.

This is an old argument, and they call it commonplace. It is
commonplace, in fact; it has appeared over and over again in the
discourses of Socrates, in the writings of Galen, of Kepler, of Newton,
of Linnaeus. Yes, this argument has fallen so low as to be public
property, if we can say that truth falls when it shines with a splendor
vivid enough to enlighten the masses. If I desired to bring together
here the testimony of all the savants who have seen God in nature, the
song of all the poets who have celebrated the glory of the Eternal as
manifested by the creation, the enumeration would be long, and I should
soon tire out your patience. You can understand therefore that if there
are, as the misanthrope Rousseau says there are, philosophers who hold
in such contempt vulgar opinions that they prefer error of their own
discovery to truth found out by other people, then the ancient argument,
which infers the wisdom of the Creator from the order of the creation,
must be the object of but small esteem with them. Still I for my part
take this old argument for a good one, and I mean to defend it.

Nature is verily and indeed a marvel placed before the observation of
our minds. The growth of a blade of grass, the habits of an ant, contain
for an attentive observer prodigies of wisdom. A drop of dew reflecting
th