andonment of early
faith by those who would cherish it longer if they could, is it not
plain that the one thing thinking men are waiting for is the
introduction of Law among the Phenomena of the Spiritual World? When
that comes we shall offer to such men a truly scientific theology. And
the Reign of Law will transform the whole Spiritual World as it has
already transformed the Natural World.

I confess that even when in the first dim vision, the organizing hand of
Law moved among the unordered truths of my Spiritual World, poor and
scantily-furnished as it was, there seemed to come over it the beauty of
a transfiguration. The change was as great as from the old chaotic world
of Pythagoras to the symmetrical and harmonious universe of Newton. My
Spiritual World before was a chaos of facts; my Theology, a Pythagorean
system trying to make the best of Phenomena apart from the idea of Law.
I make no charge against Theology in general. I speak of my own. And I
say that I saw it to be in many essential respects centuries behind
every department of Science I knew. It was the one region still
unpossessed by Law. I saw then why men of Science distrust Theology; why
those who have learned to look upon Law as Authority grow cold to it--it
was the Great Exception.

I have alluded to the genesis of the idea in my own mind partly for
another reason--to show its naturalness. Certainly I never premeditated
anything to myself so objectionable and so unwarrantable in itself, as
either to read Theology into Science or Science into Theology. Nothing
could be more artificial than to attempt this on the speculative side;
and it has been a substantial relief to me throughout that the idea rose
up thus in the course of practical work and shaped itself day by day
unconsciously. It might be charged, nevertheless, that I was all the
time, whether consciously or unconsciously, simply reading my Theology
into my Science. And as this would hopelessly vitiate the conclusions
arrived at, I must acquit myself at least of the intention. Of nothing
have I been more fearful throughout than of making Nature parallel with
my own or with any creed. The only legitimate questions one dare put to
Nature are those which concern universal human good and the Divine
interpretation of things. These I conceive may be there actually studied
at first-hand, and before their purity is soiled by human touch. We have
Truth in Nature as it came from God. And it has to be r