THOUGHTS ON OUR CONCEPTIONS OF PHYSICAL LAW. 3 



on each member of the present audience — all must be taken into account [in this 

 stupendous calculation. And now, given the myriads of vibrating atoms, and 

 whatever else may constitute a man, and the external forces which act upon him, 

 the manner in which the atomic motions of his body will be modified, and the re- 

 sulting effect upon his thoughts and decisions must be determined. The calcula- 

 tion must be comprehensive enough to include the thoughts and actions of all men 

 through all time. Such a being would be able to determine, by aid of some high 

 order of mathematical analysis, how many men will exist upon this earth five 

 hundred years hence, would be able to locate each man, as astronomers predict 

 the position of planets, and must be able to predict what task will then employ 

 his hands, what train of thought, will then be passing through his mind. A great 

 famine occurs in China : it is produced by a combination of unfortunate circum- 

 stances, and the exact limit of its ravages could have been predicted, ages before. 



A certain closed line drawn upon the earth, would mark out the area where 

 25 per cent, of the inhabitants would starve to death. Outside of this area would 

 lie a belt of country, where 20 per cent, would die, and in this manner the whole 

 of the melancholy facts could be represented. The discussion of the distribution 

 of people and food, the means of transportation, the physical strength and wealth of 

 individuals affected,and other matters involved in the question,would enable an all- 

 powerful mind to determine to what extent each ^individual would be affected and 

 which ones would be strained beyond physical endurance. The position of each 

 atom of matter in our world must be deducible, and the exact manner in which 

 each atom moves and vibrates. Some portion of matter may repose for ages, 

 locked in some rocky ledge. Infinite intelligence can calculate when a chance 

 stroke from a workman's hammer may beat it loose, at what time it will be borne 

 aloft on the fickle and inconstant winds, and when and where it will again fall, 

 now it becomes part of some animal or plant, but everywhere its existence is rec- 

 ognized and its path is traced by infinite mental power. 



When we consider that our earth is but a speck in this universe of universes, 

 that untold millions of suns and worlds are scattered through space, and that all 

 are grasped by a knowledge equally profound, we begin to get some faint idea of 

 the magnitude of that mind which can solve the general equations of the universe, 

 and we can begin to reaHze, how comparatively insignificant, how necessarily im- 

 perfect, are our highest mental achievements. 



Whether or not there be such a being as the one we have here imagined, it 

 would be foreign to our purpose to discuss, but it seems to me that very few who 

 talk fluently on either side of the question, have ever tried to weigh, in a calm and 

 dispassionate manner, the awful import of the words they use. 



In such a calculation as the one we have here supposed, mental philosophy 

 would become an exact science. The intensity of mental action, the strength of 

 different minds, and quantities of pleasure and pain would be determined. The 

 logic of the wise and the foolish, the learned and the ignorant, the virtuous and 

 the vicious, would be followed out to the conclusions which these minds would 

 severally reach, under the particular circumstances in which each is placed. 



