Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/818

come when these royal and ultimate laws shall wreck the natural order of things which seems so stable and so fair? Earthquakes were not things of remote antiquity, as an island off Italy, the Eastern Archipelago, Greece, and Charleston bore witness. ... In presence of a great earthquake men feel how powerless they are, and their very knowledge adds to their weakness. The end of human probation, the final dissolution of organized society, and the destruction of man's home on the surface of the globe, were none of them violently contrary to our present experience, but only the extension of present facts. The presentiment of death was common; there were felt to be many things which threatened the existence of society; and, as our globe was a ball of fire, at any moment the pent-up forces which surge and boil beneath our feet might be poured out.—Pall Mall Gazette, December 6, 1886.

The preacher appears to entertain the notion that the occurrence of a "catastrophe"^[1] involves a breach of the present order of Nature—that it is an event incompatible with the physical laws which at present obtain. He seems to be of opinion that "scientific reason" lends its authority to the imaginative supposition that physical law will prevent the occurrence of the "catastrophes" anticipated by an unscientific apostle.

Scientific reason, like Homer, sometimes nods; but I am not aware that it has ever dreamed dreams of this sort. The fundamental axiom of scientific thought is that there is not, never has been, and never will be, any disorder in Nature. The admission of the occurrence of any event which was not the logical consequence of the immediately antecedent events, according to these definite ascertained, or unascertained, rules which we call the "laws of Nature," would be an act of self-destruction on the part of Science.

"Catastrophe" is a relative conception. For ourselves it means an event which brings about very terrible consequences to man, or impresses his mind by its magnitude relatively to him. But events which are quite in the natural order of things to us, may be frightful catastrophes to other sentient beings. Surely no interruption of the order of Nature is involved if, in the course of descending through an Alpine pine-wood, I jump upon an ant-hill and in a moment wreck a whole city and destroy a hundred thousand of its inhabitants. To the ants, the catastrophe is worse than the earthquake of Lisbon. To me, it is the natural and necessary consequence of the laws of matter in motion, A redistribution of energy has taken place, which is perfectly in accordance with natural order, however unpleasant its effects may be to the ants.

Imagination, inspired by scientific reason, and not merely assuming the airs thereof, as it unfortunately too often does in the pulpit, so far from having any right to repudiate catastrophes and deny the possi-

1. At any rate, a catastrophe greater than the Flood, which, as I observe with interest, is as calmly assumed by the preacher to be an historical event as if Science had never had a word to say on that subject!