LVIII ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



" the smallest visible bulk ; and we have the strongest evidence that 

 " although there exist great and essential differences in individuals 

 '•' among these atoms they may yet be arranged in a very limited number 

 '■'' of grou23s and classes, all the individuals of each of which are, to all 

 ^'' intents and purposes, exactly alike in all their properties. 



" Now when we see a great number of tilings precisely alike, we do 

 "not believe this similarity to have originated except from a common 

 "principle independent of them, and that we recognize this likeness 

 " chiefly by the identity of their deportment under similar circumstances 

 " strengthens rather than weakens the conclusion, 



"A line of spinning jennies, or a regiment of soldiers dressed 

 " exactly alike, and going through precisely the same evolutions, gives us 

 " no idea of independent existence, we must see them act out of concert,, 

 " before we can believe them to have independent wills and properties 

 "not impressed on them from without. And this conclusion which 

 " would be strong even were only two individuals precisely alike in all 

 '■ respects, and for ever, acquires irresistible force when their number 

 " is multiplied beyond the power of imagination to conceive. If we 

 " mistake not, then, the discoveries alluded to, destroy the idea of an 

 " eternal self -existent-matter, by giving to each of its atoms, the essential 

 " characters, at once, of a manufactured article, and a subordinate agent." 



It will be another illustration of Herschel's argument if we sup- 

 pose that the minute-hand of every clock on a line of railway from the 

 Atlantic to the Pacific always points to the same minute at the same 

 moment, for then we know that there must be a controlling clock pro- 

 ducing this effect by an electric current, and behind this controlling 

 clock a controlling mind. 



If instead of hundreds of clocks, we knew that there were count- 

 less millions of millions of clocks throughout the universe beating to- 

 gether, the argument would be the stronger. 



Now although we have not clocks, the vibrations of whose pendulums 

 are kept in unison, we Ihave vibrating bodies in numbers transcending 

 our power of imagination, which vibrate in exactly the same time 

 throughout the universe. It is Clerk-Maxwell's illustration. We laiow 

 by the spectroscope, that chemical elements which may be examined in 

 this room, and which exist over all tlie earth, are to be found also in the 

 Sun and in the most distant stars, stars so distant that news from them 

 flyiag with the velocit}'- of light, takes ages of ages to reach us, inniraier- 

 able stars, at immeasurable distances in all directions, above, below, 

 around us; yet in all these heavenly bodies the countless molecules of 

 the element hydrogen, make their quick vibrations in exactly the same 

 period as those on earth, with a perfection of exactitude that no clock 

 of man's construction can approach. 



