4H THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Divisibility and Incompressibility of Matter. But, if, in these cases, 

 Mr. Martineau holds that a necessity in thought implies an answering 

 necessity in things, why does he refrain from saying the like in other 

 cases ? Why, if he tacitly asserts it in respect of space-relations and 

 the statical attributes of Body, does he not also assert it in respect 

 of the dynamical attributes of Body? The laws conformed to by 

 that mode of force now distinguished as " energy " are as much neces- 

 sary to our thought as are the laws of space-relations. The axioms 

 of Mechanics lie on the same plane with the axioms of pure Mathe- 

 matics. Now, if Mr. Martineau admits this, as he cannot but do — if 

 he admits, as he must, the corollary that there can be no such mani- 

 festation of energy as that displayed in the motion of a planet, save 

 at the expense of equivalent energy which preexisted — if he draws 

 the further necessary corollary that the direction of a motion cannot 

 be changed by any action, without an equal reaction in an opposite 

 direction on something acting — if he bears in mind that this holds not 

 only of all visible motions, celestial and terrestrial, but that those 

 activities of Body which affect us as secondary properties are also 

 known only through other forms of energy which are equivalents of 

 mechanical energy — and if, lastly, he infers that none of these deriv- 

 ative energies can have given to them their characters and directions, 

 save by preexisting forces, statical and dynamical, conditioned in 

 special ways — what becomes of that " realm of a Divine originality " 

 which Mr. Martineau describes as remaining within the realm of 

 necessity ? Consistently carried out, his argument implies a univer- 

 sally-inevitable order, in which volition can have no such place as that 

 he alleges. 



Not pushing Mr. Martineau's reasoning to this conclusion, so 

 entirely at variance with the one he draws, but accepting his state- 

 ment just as it stands, let us consider the solution it offers us. We 

 are left by it without any explanation of Space and Time ; we are not 

 helped in conceiving the origin of Matter ; and there is afforded us no 

 idea how Matter came to have its primary attributes. All these are 

 tacitly assumed to exist uncreated. Creative activity is represented as 

 under the restrictions imposed by mathematical principles, and as hav- 

 ing for datum (mark the word) a substance which, in respect of certain 

 characters, defies modification. But surely this is not an interpreta- 

 tion of the mystery of things. The mystery is simply relegated to a 

 remoter region, respecting which no inquiry is to be made. But the in- 

 quiry must be made. After every such solution there arises afresh the 

 question, What are the origin and nature of that which imposes these 

 limits on creative power? what is the primary God which dominates 

 over this secondary God ? For, clearly, if the " Omnipotent Architect 

 himself" (to use Mr. Martineau' s somewhat inconsistent name) is 

 powerless to change the "material datum objective" to him, and 

 powerless to change the conditions under which it exists, and under 



