hey call vital force and what not--metaphors
all, or rather counters to mark an unknown quantity, as if they should
call it _x_ or _y_. One says--It is all vibrations: but his reason,
unsatisfied, asks--And what makes the vibrations vibrate? Another--It is
all physiological units: but his reason asks--What is the "physis," the
nature and innate tendency of the units? A third--It may be all caused
by infinitely numerous "gemmules:" but his reason asks him--What puts
infinite order into these gemmules, instead of infinite anarchy? I
mention these theories not to laugh at them. I have all due respect for
those who have put them forth. Nor would it interfere with my
theological creed, if any or all of them were proven to be true
to-morrow. I mention them only to show that beneath all these theories,
true or false, still lies that unknown _x_. Scientific men are becoming
more and more aware of it; I had almost said, ready to worship it. More
and more the noblest-minded of them are engrossed by the mystery of that
unknown and truly miraculous element in Nature, which is always escaping
them, though they cannot escape it. How should they escape it? Was it
not written of old--"Whither shall I go from Thy presence, or whither
shall I flee from Thy Spirit?"

Ah that we clergymen would summon up courage to tell them that! Courage
to tell them, what need not hamper for a moment the freedom of their
investigations, what will add to them a sanction--I may say a
sanctity--that the unknown _x_ which lies below all phenomena, which is
for ever at work on all phenomena, on the whole and on every part of the
whole, down to the colouring of every leaf and the curdling of every cell
of protoplasm, is none other than that which the old Hebrews called--by a
metaphor, no doubt: for how can man speak of the unseen, save in
metaphors drawn from the seen?--but by the only metaphor adequate to
express the perpetual and omnipresent miracle; The Breath of God; The
Spirit who is The Lord, and The Giver of Life.

In the rest, let us too think, and let us too observe. For if we are
ignorant, not merely of the results of experimental science, but of the
methods thereof: then we and the men of science shall have no common
ground whereon to stretch out kindly hands to each other.

But let us have patience and faith; and not suppose in haste, that when
those hands are stretched out it will be needful for us to leave our
standing-ground, or t