ON THE MATERIALISM OF ATOMS AND FORCES. 293 



For not to raise the question of God's existence at all is 

 in any system of philosophy, equivalent to a denial of it, 

 and this, which is involved in its proscription of meta- 

 physics, is the defect in all the forms of positivism, as in all 

 philosophies which build solely on the facts of experience 

 as the only existence. 



2. Materialism, in one of its two modern forms at 

 least, may justly be regarded as atheism. The supposi- 

 tion that matter, conceived as consisting essentially and 

 fundamentally of atoms and molecules, could, through 

 the proper placing and packing of these atoms, produce 

 the order, beauty, life, and thought of the universe, with- 

 out some principle of arrangement, combination, or 

 guidance, lodged in matter or diffused amongst the indi- 

 viduals, something different from the matter, and at least 

 faintly analogous to reason and intelligence, is so hope- 

 less and stupid an attempt at explanation, precipitating 

 so many difficult questions and solving none, that it may 

 fairly be described as absurd as well as atheistic. For, 

 if we dispense in our explanation with everything but 

 the homogeneous atoms, there is no possibility of concert 

 between neighbouring ones any more than there is 

 between those on the earth and the remotest star ; and 

 yet some internal concert between the atoms there must 

 have been, if there was no marshalling external principle, 

 in order to produce, we will not say such a whole as this 

 great law-governed universe, but even a single substance 

 or a single molecule. Even if we import chemical 

 affinity into the atoms, and then life, as Haeckel does, or 

 even mind, as Leibnitz did and some modern atomists 

 seem inclined to do, yet the question would even then 

 remain, how the atoms of our original solar system, 

 individually intelligent and active and living, had such 

 an understanding with each other and with those of 



