THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 189 



they permitted their atoms to fall eternally through 

 empty space. Democritus assumed that the larger 

 atoms moved more rapidly than the smaller ones, which 

 they therefore could overtake, and with which they 

 could combine. Epicurus, holding that empty space 

 could offer no resistance to motion, ascribed to all the 

 atoms the same velocity ; but he seems to have over- 

 looked the consequen6e that under such circumstances 

 the atoms could never combine. Lucretius cut the 

 knot by quitting the domain of physics altogether, 

 and causing the atoms to move together by a kind of 

 volition. 



Was the instinct utterly at fault which caused 

 Lucretius thus to swerve from his own principles? 

 Diminishing gradually the number of progenitors, Mr. 

 Darwin comes at length to one ' primordial form ; ' but 

 he does not say, so far as I remember, how he supposes 

 this form to have been introduced. He quotes with 

 satisfaction the words of a celebrated author and divine 

 who had ' gradually learnt to see that it was just as 

 noble a conception of the Deity to believe He created 

 a few original forms, capable of self-development into 

 other and needful forms, as to believe He required a 

 fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the 

 action of His laws.' What Mr. Darwin thinks of this 

 view of the introduction of life, I do not know. But the 

 anthropomorphism, which it seemed his object to set 

 aside, is as firmly associated with the creation of a few 

 forms as with the creation of a multitude. We need 

 clearness and thoroughness here. Two courses and two 

 only are possible. Either let us open our doors freely 

 to the conception of creative acts, or abandoning them, 

 let us radically change our notions of Matter. If we 

 look at matter as pictured by Democritus, and as de- 

 fined for generations in our scientific text-books, the 



