thousand miles an hour; the ball would be actually at rest, and the cannon moved from it with the impetuous earth. Suppose, now, this ball should come in contact with some body upon the earth, the effect would be great, and the sensational understanding would make the ball, though at rest, active, and the other body, though in motion, passive. Then, I ask again, why define force a "mode of motion" when a mode of rest must be an equal integer? You remember the struggle the heliocentric theory of COPERNICUS had for acceptance, because the senses seemed to testify that the earth is at rest, and that the sun, moon, and stars revolve around it. The history of science of that time is now well worthy careful study and deep reflection. Absolute motion and absolute rest are identical and equally without force. Force is only in the union of opposites. No effect or change, either of rest or motion, can be except in the union of opposites. This is universally true; if not, find an exception. There can be no action without an equal reaction. You can not lift yourself by the hair, nor hang your coat upon the shadow of a nail. For action and reaction there must be the coming together of opposites. These opposites, then, are not self-contained forces, but only "moments" of force-the one, as force, having its

existence in the other.

Then, to extend the law of inertia or of the "conservation of vis viva" to chemistry and biology, it is far from necessary to suppose that motion, originally coming from the sun in the form of heat and light, has been stored in the coal in the mountains for thousands of years. True, a "moment" of force has been stored there, but that moment may be a mode of rest rather than a "mode of motion." The same remark applies to food, etc., etc. The correlation theory starts with the indestructibility of force, but in making force unital and immediate, it itself falls into contradictions which it should have recognized in the very nature of force. It makes a motionless motion (coal, food, gunpowder, etc.), a motion in equilibrio; and, carrying out the immediacy of

force, it can but see the sun radiating its heat and light throughout space with lavish profligacy, that the planets (but specks, comparatively,) may receive their share as they come in the way. Then to compensate for this great loss to the sun, it has ærolites falling into it, so that their "motion retarded" may replenish the loss!! As the planets have motions in their orbits, and as all force is mediated through opposites, may not the sun, occupying the centre of the system, be the alterum to these planetary motions, thus begetting heat and light where needed? What a saving this would be of the raw material and of ærolites !

Thus, then, force is not in fact or in thought immediate, or an absolute unit, but every begetting, becoming, change, or phenomenon, is by copulation. In human beings, we say it is love that brings together the opposites; in animals, instinct; in chemistry, affinity; in astronomy, gravitation. If the woman is debarred from the male there is no offspring, the coal in the mountain is the male or female (as you please) imprisoned.

Now we are prepared to see how it is that the eye is so wonderfully formed in the uterus, though the phenomena of life, of development and growth, are in exact harmony with the inertia of matter and the laws of motion. It is through the necessity and dependence of matter that this is possible. There can be no such thing as an independent, unital, immediate vital force; but the force is through the concrete relations, and, if you please to so express it, there are as many forces as forms, for the force is the progeny of the marriage of form and motion. The motion is mediated through the form. Heat is not converted or metamorphosed into vital force as immediate (CARPENTER), but vital force is through the highest physical mediation.

Thus it is quite clear that what we call the properties of oxygen, hydrogen, and of the other elements of matter, do not inhere in these elements as individual and immediate, but in their comprehension, which includes the universe. And the same thought must compel us to admit the same thing

of any combination of these elements up to the physical universe itself. The sensational consciousness is continually abstracting objects of sense from their relations, and seeing them in this abstract and false light. It sees that oxygen combines with hydrogen in the formation of water, and it jumps to the conclusion that these elements are endowed with "chemical affinity"; yet if it would actually change their relations a little (not entirely abstract them, as in its conception), it might see the elements separate into the original gases. It sees the grain of corn germinate and perform peculiar and wonderful phenomena, and it jumps to the conclusion that the seed is endowed with a "vital force"; yet if it would change the relations a little (keep it dry in the granary or in a mummy, if you please,) not one of these peculiar phenomena would be performed. It sees the phenomena of life in the most complex organism performed in connection with cells, and it jumps to the conclusion, "that we must not transfer the seat of real action to any point beyond the cell," and the world is flooded with a "cellular pathology." It is not a little singular that this last abstraction should come to us from the land of KANT, FICHTE, and HEGEL, but it is not the first time that the chief corner stones have been rejected by the builders. In the history of science these abstractions must be, since there must be analysis as the condition of a true synthesis; yet the great aim and end of science is to see things in their relations, in their comprehension, in their truth.

We now come to the final view of the question as to the wonderful formation of the eye, and the infinite manifestations of intelligence. An innocent person might attempt to effect perpetual motion by combining many wheels and springs, but one imbued with the law of inertia and the third law of motion would see at once, that an infinite combination would be as powerless as the simple, that an infinite combination could not create power. So one might be considered innocent who would become so confused as to suppose that a chain of dependencies extended never so

far in time and space could become thereby self-sustaining. Now we have seen that every thing in nature, whether simple or complex, is dependent for what it is upon that which it is not. This is but the carrying out of the law of inertia and the third law of motion, and is illustrated by every phenomenon in nature; the facts brought out in connection with the "theory of the correlation and conservation of forces" can not but attract attention. Then the whole physical universe must be dependent for what it is upon that which it is not. The existence of one single dependent involves an independent. Then cling to your law of inertia, to your third law of motion, to your correlation and conservation of the physical and vital forces; but then be logical, and admit that these very laws are determined and sustained by not matter, by the self-sustained, by the selfmediated, by spirit. If you will not do this, then take issue with facts and the present doctrines of science, and give to each element of matter self-activity, self-determination, and infinite intelligence. But in this you gain nothing, for in opposition to facts, you are giving to matter that which you are so unwilling to grant to its opposite-spirit.

Thus, then, as matter is inert, and as action and reaction are equal and opposite, what appears to the senses and to the sensational understanding as the laws and actions of matter are the actions and laws of spirit. Now it ceases to be strange that the eye should be formed in the womb and in the egg shell, in accordance with physical laws, perfectly adapted to the laws of light; for the laws of mechanics, the laws of chemistry, the laws of life, and the laws of light are alike but expressions of one Infinite Intelligence.

As all things are in the union of opposites, so this spirit can not be an absolute unit. But to be self-sustaining and self-determinate, it must be self-mediated,-three persons in one. In this connection, how remarkable that passage: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with GOD, and the Word was GOD. The same was in the beginning with GOD. All things were made by Him; and

As

without Him was not anything made that was made." all things are determined and sustained by the self-determining, the self-sustaining, and self-mediating spirit, its centre is everywhere and its circumference nowhere. "Not a sparrow falls to the earth but by His bidding, and every hair of your head is numbered." Do the elements of matter unite to form the eye for a future use?-do the rootlets of the plant pierce the soil towards its food, and the leaves turn to the light?-do the bees gather honey in summer for the coming winter, and are the inspirations, the instincts, the faiths of man alone deceptive and illusive? These make no exception, and it is pleasant to see that science, how far soever it may have wandered in its period of analyses and abstractions, must inevitably return in its comprehension, to the faiths of our fathers. This is not a simple return to these faiths, but it is their new birth and their baptism with the Spirit.

ON THE MODERN TREATMENT OF LACRYMAL
OBSTRUCTIONS BY DILATATION OF

THE NATURAL PASSAGES.

By JOHN GREEN, M.D., of St. Louis, Mo.

The practice of laying open the lacrymal sac through the external integuments, in cases of acute or chronic dacryocystitis, with obstruction of the nasal duct, has in our day given place to improved methods, based upon the principle so long applied to stricture of the urethra, of dilatation through the natural passages. In the present

state of knowledge it may be safely laid down as a principle, that in very few cases, either of stricture of the nasal duct or of inflammation of the lacrymal sac, is it necessary or advisable to open the sac in the old method by a puncture through the skin. If we have to deal with an acute abscess of the lacrymal sac, it is quite possible, in many