KELVIN 193 



Not only Atlantic telegraphy, the adjustable compass, but 

 the scullery tap came under his inventive genius. Apply 

 your knowledge ! It is of little use if not capable of 

 application. That was the law of Kelvin's life. In 

 addition to inventions, he soared into the profoundest 

 speculations of philosophy : the birth of worlds, the size 

 of atoms, the cooling of the earth, etc., all engaged his 

 attention. 



If the laws of gravitation, and the decomposition of 

 light by the prism, were the chief achievements of the 

 immortal Newton ; the magnitudes and motions of atoms, 

 the theory of the age of the world, and oceanic telegraphy, 

 were the principal discoveries of the immortal Kelvin. 



A mere material universe, however, did not satisfy 

 Lord Kelvin. There are such things as intelligence, 

 volition, and emotion ; the power to reason, the capacity 

 to distinguish good and evil, and taste to admire the 

 beautiful, which cannot be expressed in terms of length, 

 breadth, and depth ; or as qualities of solids, or liquids, 

 or gases. There are life and mind ; these no knowledge 

 of matter has explained. " Proofs of intelligent and bene- 

 volent design lie all around us," said Kelvin. Things 

 must be as they are either by chance, necessity, or design. 

 Chance is out of the question, unthinkable. Grant that 

 the properties of things, like those of numbers, for instance, 

 could not be otherwise, have been eternally as they now 



exist impossible as the supposition is how came the 



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