CHAPTER III. 

 INORGANIC DEVOLUTION. 



And so we are akin to the stars, and untold millions of 

 years ago the tiny particles of the materia prima, the cor- 

 puscles, electrons, or what not, began the mazy configu- 

 rations which evolved into the atoms which constitute us. 

 We began so long ago that the imagination feels almost 

 willing to rest satisfied and satiated with a conception so 

 immense, almost, but not quite. There is a disturbing 

 question. Did God, however long ago, start the circling 

 particles with the full plentitude of His energy, and then 

 leave them to waste their energy in ever multiplying con- 

 figurations down to what, however far removed it may be, 

 must be a state of rest and death, or did He give them this 

 energy in perpetuity? Put in another way, is the universe 

 a clock wound up by the Maker and left to run itself down 

 or has it within itself the elements of its own regeneration? 

 The definite answer to this great question is hardly for 

 our day but we have evidence which anticipates the an- 

 swer, evidence which is strong and good so far as it goes 

 and which leads to the conclusion that there is a compen- 

 sating devolution of the universe which, for all we know, 

 may balance its evolution. 



Our belief in inorganic evolution rests upon the apparent 

 fact that with a running-down of temperature in the stars 

 we have a continual increase in the number of elements 



(217) 



