EVIDENCE PROVING THE STATEMENT OF THE CASE 35 



asmuch as atoms cannot be destroyed, and even by the 

 educated mind, that is, the mind educated in natural 

 phenomena, cannot be conceived to be destroyed, it 

 follows that regeneration is eternal. 



Now the force pertaining to the atom and molecule 

 is only a property, and a complex property of each of 

 these special objects. " Force," pertinently observes 

 Dr. Biichner, " can as little exist without a substance, as 

 seeing without a visual apparatus, or thinking without 

 an organ of thought." l " No force without matter no 

 matter without force ! Neither can be thought of per 

 tie; separated, they become empty abstractions." 2 Again, 

 " Dissolution and generation, growth and decay, proceed 

 everywhere hand in hand an eternal chain." 3 But 

 both growth and decay are only forms of molecular 

 regeneration regeneration of substance, regeneration 

 of force.* Force or " Energy is never found except in 

 association with matter." 5 



Matter and energy are eternal, and so must be 

 u regeneration." Matter and force and "regeneration" 

 must have eternally existed. There is neither begin- 

 ning nor end of matter, energy, force, and regeneration. 

 When the mind carefully considers the problem, it 

 can come to no other conclusion, and it is one of the 



1 " Force and Matter," Dr. Louis Biichner, 1864, p. 4. 

 a Idem, p. 2. 3 Idem, p. 11. 



4 " Plants abstract from the soils silica, alkalies, calcium-phosphate, 

 and other mineral substances, which enter largely into the compo- 

 sition of the hard parts of animals. On the death and decomposition 

 of animals, these substances are once more relegated to the inorganic 

 world, thence to enter upon a new circulation through the tissues of 

 living organisms." (" Text-book of Geology," Sir Archibald Geikie, 

 F.R.S., &c., 3rd edition, 1893, p. 471.) 



5 Article, "Matter," Chambers' s Encyclopedia, 1891. 



D 2 



