"Oh purify my eyes, More and yet more, by love and holy thought, The theory which reduces the universe to mere atoms, energy, empty space, and thence deduces the whole series of phenomena, encounters an obstacle at the outset : atoms seem absolutely unchangeable. The monistic doctrine of homogeneous atoms will not work; and if we accept many atoms of many kinds they explain no property of body which has not been previously attributed to the atoms themselves. Pulverising the world into particles, next to nothing, in order to hit upon something just beyond, is a hopeless task; and to imagine that out of the superlatively little may be drawn the secret of the world's power and constructive skill, is a strange delusion. Starve the atom as you will, and then make a miniature of it in your thought; but, having dropped the attributes, how can you pick them up again? Make its essence to be extension or palpableness, merge it into dynamic points, unextended centres of attraction and repulsion, you cannot get to the beginning of things. The final simplicity of the atom must include internal movements; when these are sufficiently excited, rays are emitted of a length which is in measure of the time of vibration of the molecule. This change of form, these internal movements, are impossible without shifting parts and altered relations; but then your atom is a wonderful whole, made up of many parts. The atomic theory is no explanation of the creative mystery. Reverse the process :-The eye of modern science seeks, but findeth not, some original, undivided material as the continuous substratum of all forms and distinctions. We cannot get beyond an infinitude of discrete atoms of different internal vibrations, agitated by movements carrying them in all directions, forming the myriad types with which is printed the Book of Nature. By means of these elements we produce, without any change in kind or proportion, substances with marked differences of physical and chemical property. Several distinct compounds are formed out of the same relative weights of carbon and hydrogen. Simple carbon appears as charcoal and the diamond. Apparently trivial changes in atomic Type of Nature's Book. 83 arrangements effect changes of the most unexpected and startling order. Phosphorus is, in the yellow, semi-transparent form, highly inflammable. White phosphorus, formed by exposure under water to light, is less combustible. Black phosphorus is obtained by sudden cooling of melted phosphorus. Red phosphorus can be prepared in various ways, and is combustible only at a high temperature. If we attribute these differences to various grouping of the atoms, and say— Whatever their form, it is easy, within certain limits, to vary in imagination the adjustment of their homogeneous sides, so as to build molecules of several types, and ultimately aggregates of contrasted qualities;" then, in the ultimate stuff of the universe, there are not only myriad types, but myriad types of the same letter. Nor is this all; every one of these letters has its own select list of companions and peculiar terms of fellowship. The hydrogen atom vainly tries in levity, with low figure and light weight, to be intimate with the oxygen element. The reply is, "None of you, or two of you;" and so, throughout, there are certain mathematical proportions. One gas unites with one, two, three, or more volumes of another. There appear even to be special conditions for the likeness "of daisy to daisy, of bee to bee." Then, lest we imagine everything is known, we find that while the same substance is always made up of the same elements, in the same proportion; the same elements in the same proportion, do not always form the same substance; a paradox, yet strictly true, forcibly illustrating the omnipresence of mystery. Now view the printing of the Book. The ultimate particles of matter cluster into molecules, then into masses, not trying or experimenting to obtain different grouping, or to combine unlike groups, but every one taking its own invariable form. For example, water, wherever and however formed, is always the same substance, and made up of the same component gases in the same relative proportions. "No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of the molecules throughout the whole region of the stellar universe, for evolution continuously implies continuous change, and the molecule is incapable of change or decay, of generation or destruction. . . . Though, in the course of ages, catastrophes have occurred and may yet occur in the heavens, though ancient systems may be dissolved and new systems evolved out of their ruins, the molecules out of which these systems are built-the foundation stones of the material universe-remain unbroken and unworn."1 They are endowed with attractive and repellent poles, whose play produces definite forms of crystalline architecture of constant similarity, yet endless diversities, through various and strong interactions. Atoms and molecules forming, so to speak, letters and words, these are arranged in sentences. Every solid body when slowly deposited from an aeriform or a liquid condition, takes a definite symmetrical shape, which we call crystalthe process we call crystallization. "All crystals, without exception, are solids bounded by plane faces symmetrically disposed about certain straight lines called axes. No mathematician could determine these axes with more accuracy than they are found to exist. Numerical relations of the most remarkable kind exist in the proportions in which alone natural substances will combine, and these numerical relations exist also in plants. . . . Nothing is more striking in botany than the mode in which certain numbers, such as three and five and their multiples, prevail. . . . Can we believe them to be exhibited in Nature by a mere concourse of atoms, or by self-existing and self-created proportions of matter without the intervention of Intelligence and Mind?" Little importance, therefore, attaches to that unphilosophical theory which assumes that chance, having an eternity wherein to try and fit and combine, did, at length, by a hap-hazard arrangement, form the worlds; and, by chance, continued them. Cicero had a word on this "The man who believes this (that the world with all its beauty, with all its fittedness for man, as well as for animal and vegetable life, was made by the chance meeting of atoms) will believe that if a countless number of the letters of the alphabet-their material being either gold or anything else—were thrown in a mass in some place, from ' Prof. J. Clerk Maxwell. "On the Limits of Science : " Wm. Forsyth, Fraser's Magazine, February, 1875 these letters, shaken out on the ground, there can be formed the annals of Ennius, arranged in such order as to be read continuously."1 Seeing that all art, all science, are built on the discoverable intelligible purpose and use, present and prospective arrangement, it may be regarded as absolutely certain that the placing of every letter, word, sentence, paragraph, in the grand historic chapter of existing worlds, has been ordered by Supreme Intelligence. In every molecule (we now arrange our thought in figure of another fashion), formed by combination of separate atoms, we have, as it were, a solar system. The atoms are not supposed to be indefinitely near one another, but at distances great in proportion as are the planets from the sun, and revolve round each other. The distance of a fixed star from us is very great compared with that of the sun, but a portion of matter which, in our most powerful microscope seems almost indescribably small, may be as wonderfully complex in structure as is the star itself. The molecules, by means of constructive energy, build themselves up into definite shapes, but create neither new matter nor new energy; neither the vegetable body nor the animal body, as regards matter and energy, can create anything. All the mystical play of mechanical, chemical, molecular processes, leaves the magnitude of matter and the energies unenlarged; but life and intelligence so enlarge, modify, and direct the play, that the process becomes infinitely more mysterious than the mere shaking together of material particles. Matter, therefore, is not the equivalent of all phenomena; cannot create matter nor originate energy; it is a something in relation to that which went before; a something in relation to that which will follow nor is gravity or energy an essential of matter, but that by which it is pressed or pushed about. Hence, matter, in itself, whether ponderous as gold, or dense as steel, "subtile" and ethereal as gas or magnetic fluid, is not self-motive; we only know matter by its manifestation of energy, and "we are irresistibly compelled by the relativity of our thought to vaguely conceive some unknown force as the correlative of the known force."2 1 "De Natura Deorum," ii. 37. "First Principles," p. 170: Herbert Spencer. The operations of this energy, even in the lowest forms, are beautiful and delicate. From a solution of common salt, let the water slowly evaporate, and the minute particles of salt, so minute as to defy all microscopic power, deposit themselves; and, through the clustering of innumerable molecules, a fine crystalline mass of miniature pyramids is raised by structural energy. The ice of our winters is of equally skilled handiwork in definite shapes; precious to the eye of science as the diamond, and purely formed as they are delicately built. The cells of the sheath of a straw, when examined by polarised light, are found to have the architecture of a crystal : the molecules are set in definite positions. The exquisite texture of light is a miracle of beauty in its gorgeous colours; a marvel in the invisible rays, which exceed in heat; a wonder of chemic power to the world in the ultra-violet rays; and a mystery, in making all other things to be seen, itself unseen. The atmosphere is not only charged with subtile power, but contains carbonic acid-food for the vegetable world; and oxygen diluted with nitrogen-the support of animal life. All these, whether waves of æther, or of atmosphere, atoms coalescing in sky-matter, or matter in invisible masses, move to the music of law. Pass from the rudiments to the mechanism of worlds. Diffused matter is contracted into collections of attenuated flocculi, and solidified into masses. If we could mentally see the generation of the movement, the first operation of energy would be, Guthrie thinks, "approach by vibrations," that is to say, from what we know of things, a slight shiver as of leaves in faintest wind, a throb extending through the sphere of motion, the whole showing a complication vaster than the mightiest ocean swell. We may conceive of this motion. having a rhythm which could be traced in light, heat, electricity, in the spiral arrangements so general among the more diffused nebulæ, and in every particle of matter-rhythm prepared for by some primordial condition, and continued by persistence of energy. By contraction and impact, the potential energy would be gradually transmuted into heat and the visible motion of the mass. Energy, carrying the moved body in the same straight line |