200 SPECULATIVE SCIENCE 



condition without which matter would not have its present 

 properties ; if so, the void could not properly be called unem- 

 ployed. Still, Bernoulli admitting that a void is not necessary 

 to the theory of matter, gives it up. We must of course re- 

 member that these men did not mean by void the absence of 

 gross matter the Torricellian vacuum was then known they 

 meant absolute emptiness. This argument about what God could 

 or could not do, because it was derogatory to His dignity or 

 wisdom, was at this time pulled in upon all occasions, and led 

 to the strangest paradoxes about His free-will and omnipotence. 

 We do not use the argument now in support of the laws of 

 mechanics ; we do not speak of circles as more perfect than 

 other figures, and therefore more consistent with Divine wisdom, 

 but in morals a claim of the kind is still frequently made, and 

 Darwin applies this argument to stripes on horses' legs, which 

 he thinks God would not have stooped to create. We are far 

 from saying that an appeal of the kind is without meaning. 

 The argument may be turned thus, when it will no longer seem 

 altogether foolish : We observe great regularity and veiy per- 

 fect adaptation of means to ends throughout creation, so that 

 what we do understand seems to be perfectly done, and we 

 infer that the contrivances we do not understand are equally 

 perfect. Any contrivance which we can show to be bad or 

 imperfect will therefore by that very fact be proved impossible 

 as a part of creation. The main proposition will very generally 

 be granted ; the difficulty lies in applying the minor premiss. 

 When a man says that a vacuum is an imperfect contriv- 

 ance, he only means that he dislikes it ; and the application 

 of the argument to moral questions is generally open to like 

 criticism. Bernoulli asked Leibnitz how he accounted for the 

 existence of moral evil as part of a perfect universe. Leibnitz 

 returned Bernoulli's own argument about a vacuum. Evil may 

 be necessary to allow of good, just as Bernoulli thought a 

 vacuum might be necessary to allow of matter. 



Leibnitz, though he protested against atoms, himself devised 

 what must be called an atomic theory, though his atoms were 

 not separated by a vacuum. They were a kind of bubble (bulla) 

 with a glassy shell containing ether. They were of various 

 composition, containing more or less fire, earth, air, or water ; 



