sics out of
another form.

First in this latter succession may be mentioned that line of thinkers
who divined and reasoned out great physical laws--a line extending
from Galileo and Kepler and Newton to Ohm and Faraday and Joule and
Helmholtz. These, by revealing more and more clearly the reign of law,
steadily undermined the older theological view of arbitrary influence
in nature. Next should be mentioned the line of profound observers, from
Galileo and Torricelli to Kelvin. These have as thoroughly undermined
the old theologic substitution of phrases for facts. When Galileo
dropped the differing weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, he began
the end of Aristotelian authority in physics. When Torricelli balanced a
column of mercury against a column of water and each of these against
a column of air, he ended the theologic phrase that "nature abhors a
vacuum." When Newton approximately determined the velocity of sound, he
ended the theologic argument that we see the flash before we hear the
roar because "sight is nobler than hearing." When Franklin showed that
lightning is caused by electricity, and Ohm and Faraday proved that
electricity obeys ascertained laws, they ended the theological idea of a
divinity seated above the clouds and casting thunderbolts.

Resulting from the labour of both these branches of physical science,
we have the establishment of the great laws of the indestructibility
of matter, the correlation of forces, and chemical affinity. Thereby is
ended, with various other sacred traditions, the theological theory of
a visible universe created out of nothing, so firmly imbedded in
the theological thought of the Middle Ages and in the Westminster
Catechism.(283)

(283) For a reappearance of the fundamental doctrines of black magic
among theologians, see Rev. Dr. Jewett, Professor of Pastoral Theology
in the Prot. Episc. Gen. Theolog. Seminary of New York, Diabolology: The
Person and the Kingdom of Satan, New York, 1889. For their appearance
among theosophists, see Eliphas Levi, Histoire de la Magie, especially
the final chapters. For opposition to Boyle and chemistry studies at
Oxford in the latter half of the seventeenth century, see the address
of Prof. Dixon, F. R. S., before the British Association, 1894. For the
recent progress of chemistry, and opposition to its earlier development
at Oxford, see Lord Salisbury's address as President of the British
Association, in 1894. For the Protesta