Tin-: /;//./-M >/ .!/<. 



inp bodies. Abstracting from this, tliey permitted 



* to fall eternallv through rinpt\ .-pacr. Dmi- 

 assumed that tin? larger atom- 



the smaller ones, which tli- re could overtak- 



with which tney cotiid combi) urus, holding 



empty space could offer no reei n, ascribed 



to all the atoms the same veloeitv; but he s.-cms to have 

 overlooked the consequence that under such cireum- 

 the atoms could never combine. Lucretius cut tin- knot 

 by quitting the domain of physics altogether, and cansini: 

 the atoms to move together by a kind of volition. 



Was the instinct utterly at fault which caused Lucretius 

 thus to swerve from ins own principles? Diminishing 

 trradually the number of progenitors, .Mr. Darwin mines at 

 length to one " primordial t'..rm: " but he does not say, so 

 far as I remember, how he supposes this form to have been 

 introduced. He quotes with satisfaction the words of a 

 celebrated author and divinewhohad "gradually learned to 

 was just as noble a conception of the Deity to 

 believe He created a few original forms, capable of self- 



pment into other and needful forms, as to believe 

 juiivd a fresh act of creation to supply the voids 

 i by the action of his laws." What Mr. Darwin 



thinks of this view of the introduction of life, I do not 

 know. Hut the anthropomorphism, which it seemed his 

 object to set aside, is as firmly associated with the creation 

 of a few forms as with the creation of a multitude. \\ 

 need clearness and thoroughness here. Two courses and 

 two only are possible. Hither let us open our doors 

 freely to the conception of creative acts, or abandoning 

 . let us radically change our notions of Matter. If 

 we look at matter as pictured by Dernocritus, and as de- 

 for generations in our scientific text-books, the 

 notion of conscious life coming out of it cannot be formed 

 by the mind. The argument placed in the mouth of 

 Hishop Kutlcr sutliees. in my opinion, to crush all such 

 iaiism :is this. Those, howevi i . who fraim-d these 

 definitions of mai.h-r wen- but partial >tudciits. Tln-y 



were not biologists, but matliemati. -ian-. \\ hose labors 



referred only to M i proiterties of n 



as could be expressed in their formula*. Their science was 



a nical science, not the scinicr of life. With n 

 in its wholeness they never dealt; and, d< -midcd by their 



