164 THE CREATION OF MATTER 



and of so marvellous a nature, if every atom that is, 

 is so constituted as to have relations and clear and 

 unmistakable reference to other atoms, it is rendered 

 impossible to ascribe them to chance. No healthy 

 understanding can do anything but acknowledge that 

 they are due to mind. In short, eternity and chance 

 are here indissolubly joined together, and when chance 

 is excluded, eternity also is excluded, and mind enters. 



In bringing about relationship between eternal atoms, 

 chance cannot be conceived of as having any sphere of 

 action. We can imagine it doing something in forming 

 collocations of atoms in motion, but what part can it 

 have played in bringing about adaptation among inde- 

 pendent and unchangeable atoms, before all supposed 

 motion? It might go a very little way in producing 

 order among existences, mingling, acting, and reacting 

 on each other. But how or where could it find any 

 place in producing order that must be conceived of as 

 existing before mingling, acting, and reacting began? 

 The atoms must have been as they are, before there 

 could be any opportunity for chance doing aught. 



According to the doctrine of chances, the greater the 

 number of independent characteristics that meet together 

 for the production of a particular result the stronger is 

 the evidence that their meeting and the result are due 

 not to chance but to mind. Every additional character- 

 istic adds greatly to the strength of the evidence, increases 

 it according to a rapid multiple proportion. Sixteen con- 

 tingencies meeting are immeasurably stronger than four, 

 and sixteen times sixteen are overwhelming. Two dice, 

 shaken, and showing the same sides thrice would 

 surprise, but if it were to occur ten or twenty times, no 

 one would hesitate to ascribe it to an arrangement caus- 

 ing such a result. Between two atoms of, say, hydrogen 



