SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 401 



for the origin of that complex apparatus which the microscope is 

 revealing to us in the infinitesimal laborator}- of the cell, are we not 

 compelled to believe that the law of continuity has not been broken 

 and that a process of natural transition from the lifeless to the living 

 ma}^ yet be within reach of human discovery ? 



Still further: Are we content to believe that evolution began with 

 the nebula ^ Are we satisfied to assume our chemical atoms as an ulti- 

 mate and inexplicable fact? Herschel and Maxwell, indeed, have rea- 

 soned, from the supposed absolute likeness of atoms of any particular 

 element, that they bear "the stamp of a manufactured article," and 

 must therefore be supposed to have been specially created at some 

 definite epoch of beginning. But, when we are speaking of things 

 of which we know as little as we know of atoms, there is logically a 

 boundless difference between saying that we know no difference between 

 the atoms of hydrogen and saying that we know there is no difference. 

 Is it not legitimate for us to recognize here again the direction in which 

 analogy points, and to ask whether those fundamental units of physical 

 nature, the atoms themselves, may not be products of evolution? 

 Thus analogy suggests to us the question, whether there is any begin- 

 ning of the series of evolutionary changes which we see stretching back- 

 ward into the remote past; whether the nebulae from which systems 

 have been evolved were not themselves evolved; whether existing 

 forms of matter were not evolved from other forms that we know not; 

 whether creative Power and creative Intelligence have not been eter- 

 nally immanent in an eternal universe. 1 can not help thinking that 

 theologv may fitly welcome such a suggestion, as relieving it from the 

 incongruous notion of a benevolent Deity spending an eternity in soli- 

 tude and idleness. The contemplation of his owmi attributes might 

 seem a fitting employment for a Hindoo Brahm. It hardly fits the 

 character of the Heavenly Father, of whom we are told that he " work- 

 eth hitherto." 



In the last suggestion I have ventured outside the realm of science. 

 But most men are not so constituted that they can carry their scientific 

 and their philosophical and religious beliefs in compartments sepa- 

 rated ])y thought-proof bulkheads. Scientific and philosophic and 

 religious thought, in the individual and in the race, must act and react 

 upon each other. It was, therefore, inevitable^ that our century of 

 scientific progress should disturb the religious beliefs of men. When 

 conceptions of the cosmos with which religious beliefs had been asso- 

 ciated were rudely shattered, it was inevitable that those religious 

 beliefs themselves should seem to be imperiled. And so, in the early 

 years of the century, it was said. If the world is more than six thousand 

 years old the Bible is a fraud and the Christian religion a dream. 

 And later it was said, If physical and vital forces are correlated with 

 each other there is no soul, no distinction of right and wrong, and no 

 SM 90 26 



