Nature is verily and indeed a marvel placed before the observation of our minds.  The growth of a blade of grass, the habits of an ant, contain for an attentive observer prodigies of wisdom.  A drop of dew reflecting the beams of morning, the play of light among the leaves of a tree, reveal to the poet and the artist treasures of poetry.  But too often, blinded by habit, we are unable to see; and when our mind is asleep, it seems to us that the universe slumbers.  A sudden flash of light can sometimes arouse us from this lethargy.  If science all at once delivers up to us some one of those grand laws which reveal in thousands of phenomena the traces of one and the same mind, the astonishment of our intellect excites in our soul an emotion of adoration.  When the first rays of morning light up with a pure brightness the lofty summits of our Alps; when the sun at his setting stretches a path of fire along the waters of our lake, who does not feel impelled to render glory to the supreme Artist?  When dark cold fogs rest upon our valleys at the decline of autumn, it only needs sometimes to climb the mountain-side, in order to issue all at once from the gloomy region, and see the chain of high peaks, resplendent with light, mark themselves out upon a sky of incomparable blue.  Often have I given myself the delight of this grand spectacle, and always at such a time my heart has uttered spontaneously from its depths that hymn of adoration: 

     Tout l’univers est plein de sa magnificence. 
     Qu’on l’adore, ce Dieu, qu’on l’invoque a jamais![99]

Such is, in the presence of nature, the spontaneous movement of the heart and of the reason.  But a false wisdom obscures these clear verities by clouds of sophisms.  When your heart feels impelled to render glory to God, there is danger lest importunate thoughts rise in your mind and counteract the impulse of your adoration.  Perhaps you have heard it said, perhaps you have read, that the accents of spiritual song, those echoes, growing ever weaker, of by-gone ages, are no longer heard by a mind enlightened by modern science.  I should wish to deliver you from this painful doubt.  I should wish to protect you from the fascinations of a false science.  I should wish that in the view of nature, even those who have as yet no wish to adore, with St. Paul, Him whose invisible perfections are clearly seen when we contemplate His works, may at least feel themselves free to admire, with Socrates, “the supreme God who maintains the works of creation in the flower of youth and in a vigor ever new.”  Let us examine a few of the prejudices which it is sought to disseminate, in order to deprive of their force the reasonings of Newton, and to turn us from the opinions of Kepler.