190 Scientific Sophisms. 



posed." 1 In a word and that, the word of 

 Lucretius, adopted and adorned in the Belfast 

 Address " The Atoms are the first beginnings." 

 What then are these ultimate inorganic atoms 

 on which (according to the hypothesis of Devel- 

 opment) everything depends ? The idea ex- 

 pressed by the word itself is simply the idea 

 of " matter " in minimis, arising only from an 

 arrest by a supposed physical limit, of a geo- 

 metrical divisibility possible without end. But 

 " things which cannot be cut " might be all 

 alike ; or they might be variously different, 

 inter se ; and, on setting out in this inquiry it 

 is necessary to know on which of these two 

 assumptions we are to proceed. If the ma- 

 terialist is to be credited with any logical ex- 

 actness, it is the former assumption alone that 

 is admissible. When he asks for no more than 

 matter for his purpose of constructing a uni- 

 verse, his demand is restricted to tlie essentials 

 /o matter, the characters which enter into its 

 definition. It is from these alone that he 

 pledges himself to deduce all the accessory 

 characters which appear in one place though 

 not in another, and which discriminate the 

 several provinces of nature. It is in perfect 



1 Prof. Huxley, ut suprb, p. 64. Vide infrd, Appendix, 

 Note J. 



