280 REV. H. J. CLARKE 
be maintained that the degree of heterogeneity which the 
universe has by this time attained is perchance the outcome of 
a process which had no beginning. Sucha notion, I presume, 
may be dismissed from thought without discussion: to spend 
words in controverting it would be a waste of time, even if, 
regarded simply as assuming that a series may be co-extensive 
with infinity, it could not be at once refuted.* It should, 
therefore, be sufficiently apparent now that the theory I have 
been criticising lacks an essential condition of stability— 
namely, such indisputably first principles as might constitute 
for ita base of adequate breadth. Vainare all efforts to make 
it stand: it may be compared to an isolated column with a 
huge capital, but without a plinth; let those who have con- 
structed it do what they will to set it up, it topples over, if I 
may so express myself, this way or that, and falls of its own 
weight. 
8. What, however, if no primordial state of matter can be 
imagined which satisfactorily accounts for the existence of a 
multiplicity of heterogeneous forms ? and what if the retro- 
gressive investigation of the phenomenal universe is perceived 
at last to lead to nothing? It by no means follows that the 
failure of every intellectual enterprise in which that route has 
been taken should be accepted as conclusive evidence that 
the origin of things is inaccessible to science—that their 
beginnings are buried in absolutely impenetrable obscurity. 
Surely in the invincible persuasion, so unmistakably cha- 
racteristic of the truly scientific type of mind, that indefatig- 
able research in the direction of origin will find its justifica- 
tion in fruitful discoveries—a persuasion to which the world 
is indebted for substantial advantages far too numerous to be 
ever acknowledged in full—there is something which deserves 
profound respect. The thorough-going student of Nature 
has grasped a truth, and one which, through his agency, may 
be destined in some measure to benefit his fellow men, even 
although, it may be, he fails to see distinctly what it is, and 
whither it ultimately tends. The heavens and the earth 
having revealed to his observation that changes are inces- 
santly taking place in the direction of the increasingly mani- 
fold, that the phenomenal universe has been from the first, 
and still is, progressing in the way of development, he cannot 
allow himself to believe that science will have ever accom- 
plished its work, so long as in any respects its elemental 
* Vide The Fundamental Assumptions of Agnosticism examined in the 
Court of Pure Reason, by H. J. Clarke (T'rans., vol. xx., p. 180). 
