ON THE STATISTICAL VIEW OF NATUKK. 605 



them ; our observations ranging over very large distances 

 ill space and time, from the particles immediately before 

 u.s in artificial flames to the vibrations of atoms of distant 

 stars, which must have taken millions of years to reach 

 us. " I do not think," says Clerk-Maxwell,^ " that the 

 perfect identity which we observe between dilierent por- 

 tions of the same kind of matter can be explained on the 

 statistical principle of the stability of the averages of 

 large numbers of quantities, each of which may differ 

 from the mean. . . . For if the molecules of some sub- 

 stance, such as hydrogen, were of sensibly greater mass 

 than others, we have the means of producing a separation 

 between molecules of different masses, and in this way 

 we should be able to produce two kinds of hydrogen, 

 one of which would be somewhat denser than the other. 

 As this cannot be done, we must admit that the equality 

 which we assert to exist between the molecules of hydro- 



' ' Theory of Heat,' p. 329, &c. rlesign, it is replied that those varia- 

 Cf. also many passages in the i tions which are not conducive to 



articles on "Atom," "Molecule," 

 "Constitution of Bodies," &c., re- 

 printed in the second volume of 

 ' .Scientific Papers ' ; inter alia, p 



the growth and multiplication of 

 living beings tend to their destiuc- 

 tion, and to the removal thereby of 

 the evidence of any adjustment not 



483 : " ]5ut the equalitj' of the i beneficial. The constitution of an 

 constants of the molecules is a fact i atom, however, is such as to render 



of a very difi'erent order. It arises 

 from a particular distribution of 



it, so far as we can judge, independ- 

 ent of all the dangers arising from 



matter, a cuUocution, to use the ex- I the struggle for existence. Plaus- 

 ])ression of Dr Chalmers, of things \ ible reasons may, no doubt, be as- 

 which we have no difficulty in signed for l)elieving that if the 

 imagining to have been arianged constants had varied from atom to 

 otherwise. But man}' of the atom through any sensible range, 

 ordinary instances of collocation are the bodies formed by aggregates of 

 adjustments of constants, which are ■ such atoms would not have been so 

 not only arbitrary in their own well fitted for the construction of 

 nature, l)ut in which variations the world as the bodies which 

 actually occur ; and when it is , actually exist. But us we have 

 pointed out that these adjustments I no experience of bodies formeil of 

 are beneficial to living beings, and | such variable atoms, this must re- 

 are therefore instances of benevolent ' main a bare conjecture." 



