1. It is curious to observe how, when the question is concerning a work of Nature, we no sooner find out how a thing is made than we immediately exclaim: “It is not made at all, it became so of itself!” So long as we knew not how worlds were made, we of course concluded they must have been created, but so soon as science showed _how_ it was probably done, immediately we say we were mistaken--they were not made at all. So also, so long as we could not imagine how new organic forms originated, we were willing to believe they were created, but, so soon as we find that they originated by evolution, many at once say, “We were mistaken; no creator is necessary at all.” Is this so when the question is concerning a work of man? Yes, of one kind--viz., the work of the magician. Here, indeed, we believe in him, and are delighted with his work, until we know how it is done, and then all our faith and wonder cease. But in any honest work it is not so; but, on the contrary, when we understand how it is done, stupid wonder is changed into intellectual delight. Does it not seem, then, that to most people God is a mere wonder-worker, a chief magician. But the mission of science is to show us how things are done. Is it any wonder, then, that to such persons science is constantly destroying their superstitious illusions? But if God is an honest worker, according to reason--i. e., according to law--ought not science rather to change gaping wonder into intelligent delight--superstition into rational worship? 2. Again, it is curious to observe how an _old truth_, if it come only in a _new form_, often strikes us as something unheard of, and even as paradoxical and almost impossible. A little over thirty years ago a little philosophical toy, the gyroscope, was introduced and became very common. At first sight, it seems to violate all mechanical laws, and set at naught the law of gravitation itself. A heavy-brass wheel, four to five inches in diameter, at the end of a horizontal axle, six or eight inches long, is set rotating rapidly, and then the free end of the axis is supported by a string or otherwise. The wheel remains suspended in the air while slowly gyrating. What mysterious force sustains the wheel when its only point of support is at the end of the axle, six or eight inches away? Scientific and popular literature were flooded with explanations of this seeming paradox. And yet it was nothing new. The boy’s top, that spins and leans and will not fall, although solicited by gravity, so long as it spins, which we have seen all our lives without special wonder, is precisely the same thing.