I 



PROTHYLE THE NE PLUS ULTRA OF SCIENCE. 1 93 



having In prothyle a basis which all things have 

 been and will be, but which itself never is. For 

 though prothyle is the ground of all reality and the 

 basis out of which all things are evolved, it is itself 

 never actual : when atoms are dissolved into pro- 

 thyle, they apparently perish, when they are gene- 

 rated, they arise out of nothing : for prothyle lacks 

 all the qualities which could make it knowable or 

 perceptible (§ 14). 



Such is the theory of the evolution of all things 

 out of prothyle, a theory deserving of the highest 

 praise, not only for its scientific ingenuity, but also 

 as being the logical completion of the evolutionist 

 method of explanation. For it has derived all com- 

 plexity and all differences from the absolutely simple 

 and homogeneous, viz., prothyle. And as it depicts 

 the universe as a perfectly self-existent whole, we 

 may predict for it a very considerable popularity 

 among the foes of *' supernaturalism," as dispensing 

 with the last apology for the belief in creation. 



§ 14. But the very excess of the theory's suc- 

 ess paves the way for its irretrievable overthrow of 

 he method of which it is the logical result. 



The prothyle, from which it derives all things, is 

 n reality nothing, for it is devoid of all the charac- 

 eristics of sensible reality. It is not tangible, be- 

 ause its particles, if it has any, would exist in 

 tomic isolation ; nor audible, because sound de- 

 ends on vibrations in very complex matter ; nor 

 isible, because it is anterior to the differentiation of 

 ravitating matter and ether, upon which the phen- 

 menon of light depends. For the same reason it 

 an have neither colour, nor weight, nor electric 

 properties. It has no temperature, because heat is 

 but molecular motion, and ex hyp. it precedes dis- 



R. of S. Q 



