1 8 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 



We were recently considering the awful dis- 

 tances over which science, under the form of 

 astronomy, exercises her sway. Some of the in- 

 credible minuteness of the objects with which she 

 also concerns herself, will be gained by learning 

 that the molecules of hydrogen, in which the 

 electrons fly about like full-stops in a room, are so 

 small that it would require about two million of 

 them placed in a row to occupy one twenty-fifth 

 of an inch, and that fifteen thousand million, 

 million, million of them would weigh one grain. 

 Of all these things great and small science takes 

 cognizance, and of all of them she can tell us much, 

 more and more every day, new vistas of know- 

 ledge constantly opening before her inquiries. 

 But there is one thing which she cannot tell us 

 now or ever, nor can pretend to tell us. She pre- 

 sents to our knowledge a universe composed of 

 matter, and that matter everywhere in motion. 

 But she cannot tell us how that matter came into 

 being, or how it came to be in motion. This 

 limitation of science is of course recognized by 

 everybody. We Catholics, in common with all 

 Christians, say that God Almighty, existing from 

 all eternity, created matter, and endowed it with 

 the wonderful properties which it possesses. It is 

 at least a simple and a sufficient theory. I am not 

 going to deal further with it now ; but let us for 

 one moment look at the alternative. If it is not as 

 we believe, then matter is eternal, and it is sentient 

 or alive, and does all these wonderful things by its 

 own powers. 



In a remarkable and nowadays too-little read 



