166 THE CREATION OF MATTER 



material world, who could make it so rich in beauty, 

 who could put into it so extraordinary a wealth of 

 order, who could make it throughout all its borders, in 

 every, even the smallest portion of its extensive territories, 

 such as to create a boundless enthusiasm of admiration, 

 must be as far above the sons of men in understanding 

 as the most distant star from which it takes light 

 thousands of years to come is above the earth. The 

 union of suns and planets and moons, of clusters and 

 galaxies and nebulae, is set in an order that declares 

 the glory of the wisdom of Him who built them and 

 appointed them their place. But the glory of wisdom 

 which they proclaim is not to be compared with the 

 glory, is almost infmitesimally small compared with the 

 glory displayed in the universe of atoms. Can then 

 order so amazing be referred to chance? Can that 

 which is worthy of a mind so far transcending all 

 measures of power be the work of, or have as the 

 ground of its being, any unintelligent principle? Can 

 triumphs, which demand for their achieving the under- 

 standing of a God, be ascribed to any blind nonentity? 

 They cannot, they cannot. Any such suggestion is an 

 insult to the poorest understanding. 



Because of the forces of matter Herbert Spencer admits 

 that there must exist an infinite and eternal force. The 

 universe is abundantly charged with force. It is every- 

 where, at every point. Many and great are the varieties 

 of it. There is the force of gravity, that in its might 

 binds suns and systems together, and at the same time 

 determines the fall of a feather and the weight of an 

 atom. There are heat energies, which in the sun rage 

 as in a furnace thousand of billions of miles in extent, 

 hundreds of thousands of miles deep, and send forth 

 swift messengers to fall gently on, and minister to, the 



