130 THE CREATION OF MATTER 



an exquisitely measured and suitable instability, and fed 

 by the blood in large quantity ; the decompositions that 

 are produced, the new combinations that are formed, the 

 motions that run along fibres, and from fibre to fibre, are 

 in numbers and kinds, in variety and order, of over- 

 mastering brilliancy. Great is the work to which they 

 thus attain. Great are the burdens they bear. Their 

 responsibilities are such as to require them to be marvels 

 of constitution. Considering them as ordered only for 

 the building up of the structure of structures, the crown- 

 ing organisation of the world, for the part which we 

 know they play in the operations of our internal nature, 

 for the execution of the multitudinous motions and 

 changes which take place in perception, our admiration is 

 kindled, our wonder inflamed, and we are forced to con- 

 clude that they are the children of mind. But if we 

 ascribe to them also the potencies necessary to their 

 being developed into perceiving natures, still more if we 

 add the powers of thinking, feeling, and willing, we 

 increase the burdens laid on them enormously, we require 

 that there should be in them potencies leaving mechanical 

 and chemical properties far beneath, and make the atoms 

 of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen as stars of 

 glory among their fellow-elements, gems lifted up to the 

 highest heaven of activity and work, a transcendently 

 glorious product of divine Intelligence. 



On the materialistic theory, indeed, these atoms are 

 exceedingly marvellous in the character and rank of their 

 potencies. Nothing is too wonderful for them to do. 

 They draw to each other. They cling together. They 

 act chemically. They spring into union, and form many 

 combinations. They strike each other and other par- 

 ticles, and strains of music pour from them. The ether, 

 sun-moved, strikes them, and they glorify it, and send it 



