THE CONSTITUTION OF MATTER. 23 



abstract forces in the world. Thus thinking energy is as 

 much superior to sensations as nutritive energy is to ali- 

 ments. In another order of thought, we might compare the 

 soul to a paper covered with writing in sympathetic ink. 

 At ordinary temperatures, the letters are unseen, but they 

 appear in fine color whenever brought near the fire. So 

 the soul has within itself dim marks and confused shapes, 

 which sensation tints and brightens. We have seen that, in 

 the mucous drop, a two hundred and fiftieth part of an inch 

 through, called the ovule, the forces and tendencies of the 

 whole nutritive and intellectual life of man lie prisoned and 

 asleep. So, too in that force without form or extension 

 which is the soul, there dwells a miniature picture of the 

 whole universe, and, by some mystic grace of God, a dream, 

 as it were, of that God himself. Thought consists in be- 

 coming acquainted with all the details of that picture in 

 little, and unfolding its meaning. Thus, that which makes 

 the whole reality of material things is form, and form, such 

 as it is shown to us in the world, is at once a principle of 

 differentiation and a principle of agreement ; in other words, 

 it is the work of an intelligence. Body and motion are 

 mere phenomena. The first is only an image of substance, 

 the last an image of action ; but substance and action both 

 are only effects of intelligent force, that is, of activity 

 operating in view of a result. That activity, however, pre- 

 sents infinitely varied degrees of condensation, and we may 

 say, with Maudsley : " One equivalent of chemical force 

 corresponds to several equivalents of lower force ; and one 

 equivalent of vital force to several equivalents of chemical 

 force." It is thus that modern science unties the Gordian 

 knot of the composition of matter. 



m. 



A first exclusively analytical view of the world has 

 led us to a first undeniable certainty, the existence of a 



