Scientific Sophisms. 253 



invested. It is not the law which determines 

 the combination, but the qualities which deter- 

 mine the law. These elements act as they act, 

 simply because they are what they are." 1 How 

 then came they to be what they are ? These 

 "myriad types of the same letter"; these un- 

 hewn blocks from an unknown quarry ; more 

 indestructible than adamant ; the substratum 

 of all the phenomena of the universe ; and yet, 

 amid the wreck of all things else, this infinitude 

 of discrete atoms alone is found incapable of 

 change or of decay. Who preserves to them 

 their absolute identity, notwithstanding their 

 infinite variety ? Who endowed them with 

 their inalienable properties ? W T ho impressed 

 upon them the ineffaceable characters which 

 they are found to bear ? At what mint were 

 they struck, on what anvil were they forged, 

 in what loom were they woven, so as to possess 

 "all the characteristics of manufactured articles"? 

 5. Whatever then may be said about "the 

 formation of" "a plant, or an animal," it is 

 certain that the formation of an Atom and 

 consequently of a crystal is precisely the op- 

 posite of that alleged by Professor Tyndall : it 

 is not "a purely mechanical problem." "Manu- 



1 " Atomism." By Prof. Watts. Belfast : Mullan, 

 1874, p. IS- 



