[212] George Stephenson used to watch the speed of his locomotive, and pleasantly remark that he was utilizing the solar heat of the great coal-period. The words were his own. The idea was Herschel's.
[213] "Time is no agent, as some people appear to think it, that it should accomplish anything of itself. Looking at a heap of stones for a thousand years, will do no more toward making a house of them, than looking at it for one moment. The cause is obvious. Time, when applied to works of any kind, being only a succession of relevant acts, each furthering the work to be accomplished, it is clear that even an infinite succession of irrelevant, and consequently useless acts, would no more achieve or forward the completion of it, than an infinite number of jumps in the same place would advance one toward a journey's end; for there is a motion without progress, in time as well as space; where that has often remained stationary which appeared to us, in leaving it behind, to have receded."—Guesses at Truth. First Ed., pp. 61-2.
[214] Fragments of Science, p. 442. The passage has been referred to before—and its pith alone is given here—i.e. the central sentence.
[215] Astronomy, Chapter viii. init., note p. 264. Ed. 1850.
[216] Page 178, seq.
[bd] Compare our summary of Powell's argument on this point, pp. 173-4 ante. "We see the necessity of a Moral cause as distinguished from a physical antecedent, when we survey Nature. But Nature does not contain the idea in an explicit shape. She only necessitates its acceptance."
[217] Having before quoted at some length from this distinguished Professor, it seems needless to add anything here, except that the same sentiments will be found reasserted in his later works.—See Spirit of Inductive Philosophy, pp. 152-3, and 175-9; and compare Chapter II. ante, Additional notes D and E, pp. 103-107, where these passages are in part quoted and commented on.
[218] Of course, if any man pronounces anything absolutely unknowable, he says virtually, "my knowledge equals the sum total of all knowledge."
[219] Every one who writes this word, must feel tempted to ask why such a condition attaches to any truth. This Essay avoids metaphysical inquiries; we must, therefore, rest content with having plainly shewn that it does attach to the most certain and necessary of all truths.
[be] The reader may be pleased to recal Professor Huxley's two necessary beliefs—necessary, that is, for making the world we live in less miserable and less ignorant. First, that the Order of Nature is practically ascertainable. Secondly, that our Volition counts for something as a condition in the course of Events. (Lay Sermons, p. 159,—already quoted pp. 247 and 8 ante.)