BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION. 19 



It is such conceptions as tliese which have forced the scientist 

 to the conclusion that there is no such thing as absolute size in 

 nature. There is relative greatness or smallness, nothing more. 

 Fix your minds on anything apparently great or small ; there is 

 still an infinite range of objects greater or smaller, above or below 

 it. But the absolutely great or small is never reached. 



There is another conclusion. However far we may carry our 

 researches into the recesses of nature, however much we widen 

 the limits of natural and explainable causes, we always come at 

 last to the point where it is necessary to acknowledge the inter- 

 vention of some will or potency beyond the powers of nature. 

 Natural causes may construct a universe when the means and 

 materials have been supplied. But no conceivable powers of 

 nature can start into being the ever-rolling self-impelling mi- 

 croscoms that are to evolve this mighty structure. Matter and 

 force may be eternal, and the units of matter may eternally have 

 moved and clashed in obedience to that force ; but when that 

 molecular motion was transformed into the vortical motion of 

 innumerable little atoms of exactest weight and measure, we 

 know that a controlling will was there ; for the atoms could never 

 have measured themselves out, nor set themselves to rolling. 



And when in two totally different moulds, two different atoms 

 were formed which, in a myriad ages thereafter, were to unite 

 to form the element of water, which alone could make the aggre- 

 gations of the other elements fit sustainers of life, we know 

 that a forecasting mind was there, for a far-reaching plan was 

 formed. 



The atoms themselves bear the stamp of a master workman- 

 ship. Each one after its kind is a perfect copy of every other. 

 There is not the shadow of a variation in mass or weight or 

 properties. Each kind is exactly fitted to attach itself to some 

 other, either in pairs of atoms, or triplets, or some definite number. 

 And the substances which each union brings out are totally differ- 

 ent from every other, yet seemingly essential to the make up of 

 our diversified world. Sir John Herschel has well said, that the 

 atoms have the essential character of manufactured articles, and 

 that this precludes the idea of their being eternal and self -existent. 



