rendered more penetrating by all the many material and methodical aids of advanced civilisation--the Idea is in the natural world presented only in traces, indications, portions, which it requires a well-prepared mind to descry, still more to unite. Yet at the same time the indications of that unity are everywhere, and the hypothesis of the logical scheme or organisation of the Idea is the only theory which seems fully to correspond with the data. Nature[7], says Hegel, is the Idea as it shows itself in sense-perception, not as it shows itself in thought. In thought a clear all-comprehending total; in sense a baffling fragment. The Idea--the unity of life and knowledge--is everywhere in nature, but nowhere clearly, or whole, or otherwise than a glimpse; not a logical scheme or compact theory. Nature is the sensible in which the intelligible is bound--the reality which is the vehicle of the ideal. But the ideal treasure is held in rough and fragile receptacles which half disclose and half conceal the light within. Nature in short contains, but disguised, the idea, in fainter and clearer evidences: it is the function of man, by his scientific intelligence and ethical work, building up a social organisation, to provide the ground on which the ultimate significance and true foundation of the world may be deciphered, guessed, or believed, or imaginatively presented. The verification of the guess or deciphering, of course, lies in its adequacy to explain and colligate the facts. The true method and true conception is that which needs no subsequent adjustments--no epicycles to make it work--which is no mere hypothesis useful for subjective arrangement, but issues with uncontrollable force and self-evidence from the facts.