io THE CREATION OF MATTER 



which we ground our reasonings so plainly before the 

 eye, so easily within the reach of the knowledge of all 

 men, as in the former case. They are somewhat behind 

 the scene; they are covered over. Or if they lie, as 

 some of them do, on the surface, they are not so striking. 

 They do not so easily produce their full impression, pro- 

 claim all their meaning. Their meaning is not on the 

 surface. They hide their splendour. They dwell deep. 

 We must therefore dig for them, as for gold ; search for 

 them, as for treasures ; dive for them, as for pearls. We 

 must put forth our strength, and bend our mind eagerly 

 and earnestly to the task. And as it is when men dig 

 deep that they secure the richest treasures and reach ada- 

 mantine rock, so it is when we go down to the elements 

 of matter and consider them that we reach the greatest 

 truths, and a knowledge of them and confidence in them 

 that cannot be shaken, that cannot be undermined. 



In our argument, we propose, as we have said, to show 

 that all matter is composed of ordered elements, and that 

 the order is due to mind. It is not a chaos. It does not 

 consist of substances inert, of particles separated from 

 each other by differences many as their own number, 

 particles without likeness, measure, relationship, or any 

 ordered characteristic. Had it done so, it would not 

 have formed a subject of knowledge. Laws of action 

 could not have been predicated of it. No general affirma- 

 tions could have been made regarding it, or any portion 

 of it. The mind could have done nothing with it, 

 would have found nothing characterising it to think 

 about, nothing of its own kind of operations to see and 

 to understand, to class and to name. It would have 

 presented no field for scientific investigation, but would 

 have been a barren desert, a region of darkness, rudis 

 indigestaque moles. A science of chemistry, of physics, 



