CHAPTER X. 

 ATOMS. 



BUT these magnificent achievements the 

 Vertebral Column, the Fostering Bosom, the 

 Perfect Brain with their inexplicable origin, 

 their profound significance, their limitless re- 

 sults, have been accomplished by the cosmical 

 atoms alone. Outside those atoms, or beyond 

 them, there is not now, nor has there been at 

 any time, any existence whatever. No sub- 

 stance, no essence, no entity, no force, no 

 motion. " Matter is the origin of all that 

 exists ; all natural and mental forces are in- 

 herent in it." 1 "The existing world lay po- 

 tentially in the cosmic vapour." 8 For "the 

 fundamental proposition ot evolution " is, as we 

 have seen, "that the whole world, living and 

 not living, is the result of the mutual inter- 

 action, according to definite laws, of the forces 

 possessed by the molecules of which the 

 primitive nebulosity of the universe was com- 



1 Buchner, ut sup., p. 96. 



1 Prof. Huxley, ut 3up.> p. 64. 



