Time was when men accepted nature for what it seemed. The world was flat, and things were made up of earth, air, fire, water, etc., as any one might see. This matter-of-fact view was greatly modified by the logic of Hebrew monotheism, which brought to men an abiding sense of unity and gave rise to the concept of one omnipresent Cause and Creator.
A further advance in the thought of nature was effected by the demonstration and acceptance of the heliocentric order of the universe. Then men saw as never before the sweep and all-inclusiveness of law, and so they were led to the adoption of the Baconian attitude of inquiry and experimentation respecting so-called natural phenomena. Nevertheless, in all the Christian centuries physical nature has remained an insoluble mystery, not only in the sense that many of its processes and operations are beyond human ken, but in that they are inexplicable, the manifestations of a seemingly blind force which works its will in subtle, unintelligible ways.
The universe is a riddle to the atheist, who declares that all causation is to be found in the potentialities of matter; and it is no less a riddle to the Christian materialist, who thinks of matter as the inert and senseless, but divinely provided means by which a sovereign will is expressed. In the one case the mystery inheres in the asserted fact that what is affirmed to be unintelligent, mindless, mere stuff, is able in its evolutions to generate thought and express itself in ways and forms which suggest an infinity of wisdom and beauty. In the other case the mystery inheres in the asserted fact that He who is declared to be all-wise, all-loving, and all-powerful has instituted and maintains an order of things which involve unspeakable conflict, injustice, suffering, and wrong.
