ATOMS AND MOLECULES 17 



earth is insignificant in comparison. And though by the 

 naked eye only two or three thousand stars can be seen, 

 the telescope reveals in the Milky Way many millions. 

 And these are suns, and have doubtless planets attending 

 them. These millions belong to one nebula, and nebulae 

 are in thousands, and consist either of suns and systems 

 or of matter being gathered into suns and systems. And 

 the spectroscope tells us that the same substances to a 

 large extent are burning in them as in our own globe. 

 And beyond the spaces swept by our telescope there 

 may be immeasurably vaster numbers of suns and systems 

 than within them, so that to the imagination winging its 

 way through immensity, the poet might justly say and 

 sing 



" Before thy path Infinity ! 



Fold thy wings drooping, thought eagle swooping ; 



phantasy, anchor, thy voyage is o'er ; 



Creation, wild sailor, rolls on to no shore." 



And all the matter that is, we repeat, is ordered and 

 crammed with thought from its circumference to its core, 

 from its giant orbs to its minutest points, from its most 

 complex organisations to its minutest atoms. And on 

 every atom the finger of mind has printed itself. He 

 counts the number of the stars ; to His understanding 

 there is no number. He counts not the stars only but 

 the atoms, the atoms one by one, the atoms every one 

 those in a cubic inch of gas, of water, those in all waters, 

 those in a molehill, in the whole earth, in the sun, and 

 within range of His influence, in every sun in the 

 heavens, in all nebulae, in all space. Their numbers He 

 knows to a unit. His thoughts and painstaking care and 

 matchless hand are on every one. 



Their weight. The weight of substances is of first 

 importance in chemistry. The greatest accuracy in 



