38 SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY 



scientific view of matter became again less meta- 

 physical and more atomical and mechanical. In 

 1874 Tyndall, in his famous Belfast Address, stated 

 that he could discern " in matter which we, in our 

 ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed rever- 

 ence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with 

 opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form 

 and quality of life " ; and it was almost universally 

 held that all the manifestations of matter, including 

 life, were merely the result of ordinary mechanical 

 law. Matter was considered as a wonderful and 

 potent piece of machinery. More and more, too, 

 the idea gained strength that the qualities of matter 

 were not due to fundamental differences in atoms, 

 but to different motions of atoms really qualitatively 

 alike. " Chemistry," wrote Professor Wundt in 

 1875, "still attributes the varying qualities of 

 matter to an original difference in atomic quality. 

 But now the whole tendency of atomic physics is 

 to derive all the properties of matter from the 

 movements of the atoms. The atoms themselves 

 remain necessarily as elements lacking all qualities." 

 " It is conceivable," wrote Thomas Graham, 

 " that the various kinds of matter now recognised as 

 different elementary substances may possess one 

 and the same ultimate or atomic molecule existing 

 in different conditions of movement." " The 

 tendency of physico-chemical science," said Huxley, 



