JoLY — A Pre-Material Condition of the Universe. 571 



«,t the same time we ascribe sufficient distance sundering great and 

 small. So, too, will the highly dilute acetate of soda build a crystal 

 at one point, and the impoverishment of the medium checking the 

 growth in this region, another centre will begin at tlie furthest 

 extremities of the first crystal till the liquid is filled with loose 

 feathery aggregations comparable in size with one another. In a 

 similar way the crystallizing out of matter may have given rise, 

 not to a uniform nebula in space, but to detached nebulae, ap- 

 proximately of equal mass, from which ultimately were formed 

 the stars. 



That an all-knowing Being might have foretold the ultimate 

 event at any preceding period by observing the motions of the 

 parts then occurring, and reasoning as to the train of consequences 

 ■arising from these motions, is supposable. But considerations 

 ^.rising from this involve no difficulty in ascribing to this pre- 

 material train of events infinite duration. For progress there is none, 

 and we can quite as easily conceive of some part of space where the 

 «ame Infinite Intelligence, contemplating a similar train of 

 unfruitful motions, finds that at no time in the future will the 

 ■equilibrium be disturbed. But where evolution is progressing this 

 is no longer conceivable, as being contradictory to the very idea of 

 progressive development. In this case Infinite Intelligence neces- 

 sarily finds, as the result of his contemplation, the aggregation of 

 matter, and the consequences arising therefrom. 



The negation of so primary a material property as gravitation 

 to these primitive motions of (or in) the ether, probably involves 

 tlie negation of many properties we find associated with matter. 

 Possibly the quality of inertia, equally primary, is involved with 

 •that of gravitation, and we may suppose that these two properties 

 so intimately associated in determining the motions of bodies in 

 space were conferred upon the primitive motions as crystallographie 

 attraction and rigidity appear to our observation as first con- 

 ferred upon the solid growing from the supersaturated liquid. 

 But in some degree less speculative is the supposition that the 

 new order of motions involved the transformation of much energy 

 into the form of heat vibrations ; so that the newly generated 

 matter, like the newly formed crystal, began its existence with a 

 large supply of thermal energy. We may consider that we here 

 supply the want of the chemist, who has sought a high primitive 



