RESULTS AND LIMITS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 433 



universe is not infinite in extent and complexity, an 

 assumption for which I can see no logical basis whatever. 



The Indeterminate Problem of Creation. 



A second and very serious misapprehension concern- 

 ing the import of a law of nature may now be pointed 

 out. It is not uncommonly supposed that a law deter- 

 mines the character of the results which shall take place, 

 as, for instance, that the law of gravity determines what 

 force of gravity shah 1 act upon a given particle. Surely 

 a little reflection must render it plain that a law by itself 

 determines nothing. It is a law plus agents obeying 

 that law which have results, and it is no part of the 

 law to govern or define the number and place of its 

 own agents. Whether a particle of matter shall gravi- 

 tate, depends not upon the law of Newton only, but 

 upon the distribution of surrounding particles. The 

 theory of gravitation may perhaps be true throughout 

 all time and in all parts of space, and even the Creator 

 may never find occasion to create those possible excep- 

 tions to it which I have asserted to be conceivable. Let 

 this be as it may, and our science cannot certainly 

 determine the question, yet the theory of gravitation 

 itself gives no indication of the forces which may be 

 brought to act at any point of space. The force of 

 gravitation acting upon any particle depends, as we 

 have seen, upon the number, mass, distance, and rela- 

 tive position of all the other particles of matter within 

 the bounds of space at the instant in question. Even 

 assuming that all matter when once distributed through 

 space at the Creation, was thenceforth to act in an in- 

 variable manner without subsequent interference, yet 

 the actual configuration of matter at any moment, and 



VOL. II. F f 



