ning from all appeal to agencies that are extra-cosmic,
or not involved in the orderly system of events that we see occurring
around us, we have at last succeeded in eliminating from philosophic
speculation the character of random guesswork which at first of
necessity belonged to it. Modern scientific hypothesis is so far from
being a haphazard mental proceeding that it is perhaps hardly fair to
classify it with guesses. It is lifted out of the plane of guesswork,
in so far as it has acquired the character of inevitable inference from
that which now is to that which has been or will be. Instead of the
innumerable particular assumptions which were once admitted into cosmic
philosophy, we are now reduced to the one universal assumption which
has been variously described as the "principle of continuity," the
"uniformity of nature," the "persistence of force," or the "law of
causation," and which has been variously explained as a necessary datum
for scientific thinking or as a net result of all induction. I am not
unwilling, however, to adopt the language of a book which has furnished
the occasion for the present discussion, and to say that this grand
assumption is a supreme act of faith, the definite expression of a
trust that the infinite Sustainer of the universe "will not put us to
permanent intellectual confusion." For in this mode of statement the
harmony between the scientific and the religious points of view is
well brought out. It is as affording the only outlet from permanent
intellectual confusion that inquirers have been driven to appeal to
the principle of continuity; and it is by unswerving reliance upon this
principle that we have obtained such insight into the past, present, and
future of the world as we now possess.

The work just mentioned [1] is especially interesting as an attempt to
bring the probable destiny of the human soul into connection with the
modern theories which explain the past and future career of the physical
universe in accordance with the principle of continuity. Its authorship
is as yet unknown, but it is believed to be the joint production of
two of the most eminent physicists in Great Britain, and certainly the
accurate knowledge and the ingenuity and subtlety of thought displayed
in it are such as to lend great probability to this conjecture. Some
account of the argument it contains may well precede the suggestions
presently to be set forth concerning the Unseen World; and we shall fi