128 REV. C. GODFREY ASHWIN, M.A. 
a recognised Creator,—but do they naturally lead on to Agnos- 
ticism or to Deism? It seems to the writer that though many 
of the prophets of science call themselves Agnostics, their 
deductions from nature are distinctly Theistic! They have 
removed many erroneous interpretations of physical facts,— 
they have brought many fresh truths before the mind, but 
the more clearly they have laid open the vastness and com- 
plexity of nature,—the more conclusively they have demon- 
strated the almost incredible activity of molecular motion,— 
the more distinctly they have established the inseparable con- 
nexion which unites every particle of our solar system,—the 
more clearly, also, they have proved the all-embracing order, 
law, purpose, by which they are associated, through which 
they have been brought into their present condition, from 
‘‘a beginning, infinitely remote,” by which they are still 
acting, governed, and directed. - . 
Let them speak for themselves. First, they recognise “a 
beginning.”” Professor Huxley says : ‘‘ Astronomy, which leads 
us to contemplate phenomena the very nature of which demon- 
strates that they must have had a beginning and that they 
must have an end, but the very nature of which also proves 
that the beginning was, to our conception of time, infinitely 
remote, and that end as immeasurably distant.” * 
Then they emphatically exclude the possibility of ‘‘ chance”’ 
having brought about the phenomena they have investigated : 
declaring that a “ purpose”: was being worked out, by means 
‘adapted ” to accomplish it, through the instrumentality of 
“law ” and ‘‘ order,” directed by a ‘‘ force” which ‘ necessi- 
tated *”? the accomplishment of the purpose. 
For Professor Tyndall says: ‘‘ Within the long range of 
physical inquiry,” and that extends from “the outer rim of 
speculative science,—for beyond the nebulz scientific thought 
has never ventured hitherto,’”— within the long range of 
physical inquiry they have never discovered the insertion of 
caprice, throughout this range physical and intellectual con- 
tinuity have run side by side.” ‘‘No matter how subtle a 
natural phenomenon may be, whether we observe it in the 
region of sense or follow it into that of imagination, it is, in 
the long run, reducible to mechanical law.” He illustrates this, 
as regards the mineral kingdom, by the Pyramids. “The blocks 
in this case were moved and posited by a power external to 
themselves, and the final form of the Pyramid expressed the 
thought of the human builder.” “In the same way salt 
crystals,” therefore all crystals, “are built up, those molecular 
* Lay Sermons p. 17. 
