INTRODUCTION.

19

simply to suggest a grotesque and absurd idea, which
the mind’s fancy might play with for a few moments ; but
the idea of Gravitation instructing a man in science,
rewarding and punishing him, becoming displeased with
him and demanding his obedience, is a conception which
the reasonable mind must at once reject as compounded
of incongruous elements and therefore unintelligible.
But what does this nature mean ? We feel quite sure that
Professor Huxley cannot by this name intend to denote
the God of Nature. If he intended to express belief in
the Creator as the Supreme Intelligence, personally
engaged in the education of the human race, we are confident
 it would be in terms quite other than these. But
what, then, doesit mean? As fellow-labourers with Professor
 Huxley in the field of Science, we feel it our duty to
point out that a precise, intelligible and distinct explanation
 is called for as to the meaning which this expression
is intended to convey. There are those, we believe,
who look, at the present time, expressly to Professor
Huxley for bread ; surely this teaching, as it now stands.
is very like a stone.
On the primal basis and arrangement of the subjects
of Political Economy as &amp; Science :—Since there is but
one general Science, to which all divisional sciences
belong as parts or sections, there can be but one primal
basis in an absolute sense. Each divisional science,
however, is relatively complete in itself and has its own
primal basis, which, together with the corresponding basis
of each of the other divisional sciences, rests upon the
absolute fundamental fact of general science.
In purposing to arrange the classes of subjects to