45 



proof. All that Science can prove is, that matter has existed 

 so long as man has existed to observe it. To affirm that it is 

 eternal is an assumption, which has no more weight than the 

 counter affirmation that it is not eternal. Herbert Spencer 

 rightly says, that the eternity or self-existence of matter is 

 unthinkable ; and he argues that " the assertion that the uni- 

 verse is self-existent does not really carry us a step beyond 

 the cognition of its present existence ; and so leaves us with a 

 mere re-statement of the mystery .^^* And besides, while 

 Science is unable to advance one step towards proof of the 

 eternity of matter, some of the most eminent scientific men of 

 the age affirm that atomism itself affords strong presumptive 

 evidence of Creation and a Creator. Clerk Maxwell, at the 

 meeting of the British Association in 1873, said: — "We are 

 unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules (atoms) 

 or any of their properties to the operation of any of the causes 

 which we call natural." On the contrary, the exact equality 

 of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sii* 

 John Herschel affirmed, " the essential character of a manu- 

 factured article.'" And Herbert Spencer has laid down an 

 abstract principle which points in the same direction: — "To 

 conceive self-creation is to conceive potential existence passing 

 into actual existence by some inherent necessity, which we 

 cannot do. We cannot form any idea of a potential existence 

 of the universe, as distinguished from its actual existence. . . 

 We have no state of consciousness answering to the words — 

 an inherent necessity by which potential existence became 

 actual, existence. To render them into thought, existence, 

 having for an indefinite period remained in one form, must be 

 conceived as passing without any external or additional impulse 

 into another form; and this involves the idea of a change 

 without a cause; a thing of which no idea is possible.'^ t 

 Tyndall himself admits a principle which saps the foundation 

 of this atomic theory : — " In the course of scientific investiga- 

 tion," he says, "we make continual incursions from a physical 

 world where we observe facts, into a super or sub-physical 

 world, where the facts elude all observation, and we are thrown 

 back upon the picturing power of the mind. By the agree- 

 ment or disagreement of our picture with subsequent observa- 

 tion it must stand or fall." J Just so j it is observed fact alone 

 which substantiates the truth of a theory in Science, and when 

 observation utterly fails, as it does in this phase of the atomic 



* First Principles, p. 32. t Unci., p. 



X Crystalline and Molecular Forces, p. 9, 



