15^ 



rate of 6055 feet per second, a higher velocity than that of the 

 swiftest cannot ball, and it increases with every rise of temperature. 

 Well it necessarily follows that these gaseous molecules, darting 

 about with this inconceivable velocity, must be constantly striking 

 against each other and darting off in new directions Clerk Max- 

 well has been at the trouble of calculating how often this occurs, 

 and he tells us that at ordinary temperature and pressure each 

 particle in a mass of hydrogen makes on an average 17,700,000,000 

 collisions in every second. We listen to these numbers, or we read 

 them, and generally unquestioningly pass over them ; what if you 

 stay to think of them ? Do you find it a simple thing to grasp the 

 idea of 17,700 million separate and distinct collisions every second 

 of time ? Or does this scientific statement, like many religious 

 truths wear the aspect of the mysterious and the improbable ? It 

 may be true ; I am not arguing against it ; but taking its truth 

 for granted no miracle ever yet recorded wears such an air of 

 improbability. 



These molecules are supposed to have been thus madly rushing 

 and clashing together from all eternity ; for notice, though we 

 deserve pity for believing in an Eternal God, we are expected to 

 believe in the eternity of Matter and Force. You would ask, 

 perhaps, what has been the result of this interaction of atoms and 

 molecules from all eternity ? The answer given to you is — the 

 present state of affairs, the " Nature of Things ; "—our Universe 

 with its magnificently marshalled suns and planets, and the laws 

 by which they act ; — our Earth with all its beneficial arrangements 

 for its inhabitants ; the adaptation of man, bird, and beast, insect 

 and plant, each to its surroundings, and all to each other; the 

 structure of man himself, physical and psychical ; — these all are 

 the results we are told of the " fortuitous concourse of atoms." 



" I saw the flaring atom-streams 

 And torrents of the msrriad universe, 

 Buining along the inimitable inane, 

 Ply on to clash together again, and make 

 Another and another frame of things 

 For ever.' '(e) 



There has been no Mind at all at work as a controlling power, 

 and whatever mind does exist is a production of the unguided 

 motions of these bhnd indestructible material particles. We have 

 laws, but there has been no law-giver ; " Atoms, individually dead, 

 without sensation and inteUigence, get up of themselves, run to- 

 gether, form all actual and imaginable combinations, as if under a 

 drill master, but without a drill master. Each one by itself is 

 dead; yet, together they live. When apart they are without 

 sensation, possess no inteUigence ; but collectively they possess 



(e) Tennyson's " Lucretius." 



