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we should doubtless see that this acceleration itself had grown up. Growth is the universal phenomenon, and growth consists in a homogeneity of connections. Each stage of it is marvellously prepared for, long beforehand. Our modern gradual coming to comprehend the Universes has grown out of the study of the steam engine and its products. As my father once remarked, in his Identity in the Physical Sciences, it should never have come about had not the coal-bed been prepared for in the carboniferous age, and had it not been followed by million-year pressure of the material under mile-high superincumbents, and had this not again been succeeded by sufficient erosion to render the manufactured coal-measures to man. And what is the present preparing but Mankind's extinction, and a new race less devoted to multiplication and more to rational prevision? 269