IN MODERN SCIENCE. 



37 



crude scientific notion that certain forces are 

 " modes of motion " perhaps blinds us some- 

 what to the mystery of energy. Even if we 

 knew no other form of force than heat, which 

 moves masses of mat t or atoms, it would be 

 in many respects an inscrutable thing. But 

 as traversing the subtle ether in such forms as 

 radiant heat, light, chemical force, and electricity, 

 energy becomes still more mysterious. Perhaps 

 it is even more so in what seems to be one of 

 its primitive forms — that of gravitation, where 

 it connects distant bodies apparently without 

 any intervening medium. Facts of this kind 

 appear to bring us still nearer to the concep- 

 tion of an all-pervading immaterial creative 

 power. 



But perhaps what may be termed the deter- 

 minations of force exhibit this still more clearly, 

 as a very familiar instance may show. Our 

 sun — one of a countless number of similar 

 suns — is to us the great centre of light and 

 heat, sustaining all processes, whether merely 

 physical or vital, on our planet. It was a grand 

 conception of certain old religions to make the 

 sun the emblem of God, though sun-worship 

 was a substitution of the creature for the Cre- 

 ator, and would have been dispelled by modern 



