i yo THE CREATION OF MATTER 



them of so fine a nature, and capable of binding them 

 together so firmly and so closely that instead of acting 

 independently they act as one. In this form the con- 

 tingencies are as wonderful, and are more numerous than 

 on the supposition of the simplicity of the atoms as they 

 now are. 



If they are the product of chemical combination, if 

 they are ascribed to it, they only, we have seen, multiply 

 the signs on them of mind, they only afford a larger field 

 for the argument that they are its work. 



They are not developed by all processes combined out 

 of a chaos of matter. What has made it possible for 

 minds possessed of reason to believe that the universe 

 and its order, the earth and its wonderful organisms and 

 forms of life, have been gradually evolved out of primitive 

 matter 1 What made it possible for some of the ancients 

 to imagine that all things could be accounted for by a 

 fortuitous concourse of atoms ? Because without acknow- 

 ledging it or clearly seeing it themselves, they postulated 

 the existence of matter in an ordered condition, and 

 endowed with the riches of its varied and measured 

 properties. If matter, in its primal elements, had been 

 supposed to be a real chaos, without order or relationship 

 of parts, without measured properties, how could it have 

 been imagined that the most beautiful and wonderful 

 organisations could be produced by its action ? Evolution 

 necessarily supposes order and measured potencies in the 

 materials which work in it. Chaos can neither evolve 

 itself, nor can it be evolved. Disorder can neither develop 

 itself, nor can it be developed. 



It cannot develop itself. If the primal elements of 

 matter had been in all respects inert, without atomic form 

 and force, without the forces of gravity and cohesion and 

 many wonderful characteristics besides, they could not 



