ot necessary to reproduce here in detail the argument which has
been stated recently with so much force in the "Unseen Universe." The
conclusion of that work remains still unassailed, that the visible
universe has been developed from the unseen. Apart from the general
proof from the Law of Continuity, the more special grounds of such a
conclusion are, first, the fact insisted upon by Herschel and
Clerk-Maxwell that the atoms of which the visible universe is built up
bear distinct marks of being manufactured articles; and, secondly, the
origin in time of the visible universe is implied from known facts with
regard to the dissipation of energy. With the gradual aggregation of
mass the energy of the universe has been slowly disappearing, and this
loss of energy must go on until none remains. There is, therefore, a
point in time when the energy of the universe must come to an end; and
that which has its end in time cannot be infinite, it must also have had
a beginning in time. Hence the unseen existed before the seen.

There is nothing so especially exalted therefore in the Natural Laws in
themselves as to make one anxious to find them blood relations of the
Spiritual. It is not only because these Laws are on the ground, more
accessible therefore to us who are but groundlings; not only, as the
"Unseen Universe" points out in another connection, "because they are at
the bottom of the list--are in fact the simplest and lowest--that they
are capable of being most readily grasped by the finite intelligences of
the universe."[26] But their true significance lies in the fact that
they are on the list at all, and especially in that the list is the same
list. Their dignity is not as Natural Laws, but as Spiritual Laws, Laws
which, as already said, at one end are dealing with Matter, and at the
other with Spirit. "The physical properties of matter form the alphabet
which is put into our hands by God, the study of which, if properly
conducted, will enable us more perfectly to read that great book which
we call the 'Universe.'"[27] But, over and above this, the Natural Laws
will enable us to read that great duplicate which we call the "Unseen
Universe," and to think and live in fuller harmony with it. After all,
the true greatness of Law lies in its vision of the Unseen. Law in the
visible is the Invisible in the visible. And to speak of Laws as Natural
is to define them in their application to a part of the universe, the
sense-part, w