By the close of the era this beneficent providential order had worked out in an Order of Nature, indued with the same meliorative trend; and in the sentimental conviction of the inquiring spirits of that age it lay in the nature of this beneficent order of the universe that in the end, in the finished product of its working, it would bring about the highest practicable state of well-being for man,--very much as any skilled workman of sound sense and a good heart would turn out good and serviceable goods. And in this Order of Nature, as it runs in the matter-of-course convictions of thoughtful men at the close of the era, the person of the deity, even as a workmanlike creative Providence, had fallen into the background. The Order of Nature, with its scheme of Natural Law, is felt as the work of a consummately skilful and ingenious workmanlike agency that looks to a serviceable end to be accomplished; and the profoundly thoughtful scientific inquiry of that time harbours no doubt that this workmanlike agency of Nature at large rules the world of visible fact and will achieve its good work in good time. But this quasi-personal Nature is not reverenced for anything but its workmanlike qualities; the awe which it inspires is not the fear of God, such as that fear has played its part under the feudalistic rule of the church and sent men hunting cover from the imminent wrath to come. As he stands in the presence of this eighteenth-century Nature, man is not primarily a sinner seeking a remission of penalties at all costs, but rather a focus of workmanlike attention upon whose welfare all the forces of the visible universe beneficently converge. How this workmanlike Nature goes about her[129] work is no more plain to the casual spectator than are the recondite processes of high-wrought handicraft to the uninstructed. But Nature after all accomplishes her ends in a workmanlike fashion, and by staying by and patiently watching the operations of Nature and construing the facts of observation by the sympathetic use of a rational common sense men may learn much of the methods of her manipulation as well as of the rules of procedure under whose guidance the works of Nature are accomplished. For it is a matter of course to that generation that Nature is essentially rational in her aims and logic as well as in the technology of her work; very much after the fashion of the master craftsman, who goes to his work with an intelligent oversight of the available means and the purpose to be wrought out, as well as with a firm and facile touch on all that passes under his trained hand. Like the perfect craftsman, “Nature never makes mistakes,” “never makes a jump,” “never does anything in vain,” “never turns out anything but perfect work.”