362 DARWINISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF LIFE 



It is the very nature of the infinite that we can set 

 no limit to it, before or after. 



We may go further. The distance from the earth 

 to the sun is very considerable, but it can be 

 expressed by a definite figure, and so is finite. When 

 the sun is at its zenith and we stand on a chair, we 

 are really a little nearer to it, but may say that the 

 difference is insignificant in view of the colossal 

 distance. However, the cosmic chain of causes is 

 really infinite. No matter how many causes we 

 determine, we do not come a single step nearer to 

 infinity. Hence the results of scientific research are, 

 in comparison with the reality, not only very slight, 

 but almost nothing, and will ever remain so. 



When we inquire into the nature of the matter 

 that composes the whole world we are face to face 

 with infinity once more. However much we sub- 

 divide bodies we always come to other bodies, and 

 never to anything that gives us an insight into their 

 essence. That is easily understood, as it is the 

 property of every body to be divisible ; hence the 

 smallest particles must always be bodies and nothing 

 else. 



Hence bodies are divisible to infinity. And in this 

 process we encounter a second infinity. No part of 

 a body is like another, so that when we break up 

 matter, we discover an infinite diversity of its particles. 

 It may be said that that is not true ; that when we 

 analyse matter we come to the elements, some 

 seventy in number, of which all matter is composed. 



