CORRESP ONDENCE. 



493 



inserting a special reference to it in the 

 stereotype-plate, I here append his letter, 

 that the reader may not be misled by my 

 comments. Paying due respect to Mr. 

 Gladstone's wish to avoid controversy, I 

 will say no more here than seems needful 

 to excuse myself for having misconstrued 

 his words. " Evolution," as I understand 

 it, and " creation," as usually understood, 

 are mutually exclusive : if there has been 

 that special formation and adjustment com- 

 monly meant by creation, there has not 

 been evolution ; if there has been evolu- 

 tion, there has not been special creation. 

 Similarly, unchangeable laws, as conceived 

 by a man of science, negative the current 

 conception of divine government, which im- 

 plies interferences or special providences : 

 if the laws are unchangeable, they are 

 never traversed by divine volitions sus- 

 pending them : if God alters the predeter- 

 mined course of things from time to time, 

 the laws are not unchangeable. I assumed 

 that Mr. Gladstone used the terms in these 

 mutually-exclusive senses ; but my assump- 

 tion appears to 'have been a wrong one. 

 This is manifest to me on reading what he 

 instances as parallel antitheses ; seeing 

 that the terms of his parallel antitheses are 

 not mutually exclusive. That which ex- 

 cludes " liberty," and is excluded by it, is 

 despotism ; and that which excludes " law 

 and order," and is excluded by them, is 

 anarchy. Were these mutually-exclusive 

 conceptions used, Mr. Gladstone's parallel 

 would be transformed thus : 



" Upon the ground of what is termed 

 liberty, there has been rebellion against 

 despotism: and (likewise) in the name of 

 law and order, anarchy has been striven 

 against." 



As this is the parallel Mr. Gladstone 

 would have drawn had the words of his 

 statement been used in the senses I sup- 

 posed, it is clear that I misconceived the 

 meanings he gave to them ; and I must, 

 therefore, ask the reader to be on his 

 guard against a kindred misconception. 



I have not, however, thought it need- 

 ful to change the description given of Mr. 

 Gladstone's position, or to suppress the 

 comments made upon it ; because the sub- 

 stantial truth of this description is shown 

 by the other passage quoted, the manifest 

 meaning of which he does not disclaim. 



By characterizing Science as having " gone 

 to war with Providence" — by displaying 

 an unhesitating belief that great men are 

 providentially raised up at the needful 

 times, and by speaking with alarm and 

 reprobation of the belief that their rise is 

 due solely to natural causes, Mr. Gladstone 

 does, I think, give me adequate warrant for 

 taking his view as typical of the anti-scien- 

 tific view in general — at any rate, in so far 

 as the Social Science is concerned. Though 

 this view may not be incongruous with the 

 conception he entertains of Science, yet it 

 is certainly incongruous with the concep- 

 tion entertained by scientific men ; who 

 daily add to the evidence, already over- 

 whelming, that the Power manifested to 

 us throughout the Universe, from the move- 

 ments of stars to the unfolding of individual 

 men and the formation of public opinions, 

 is a Power which, amid infinite multiformi- 

 ties and complexities, works in ways that 

 are absolutely uniform. 



NOTE ON THE PHYSICAL CONSTITUTION 

 OF MATTER. 



To the Editor of the Popular Science Montldy : 



I have read, with much interest, the elab- 

 orate articles, by Judge Stallo, on " The Pri- 

 mary Concepts of Modern Physical Science," 

 hoping, from the scholarly manner in which 

 the author discusses the subject, that he 

 would conduct us to some more acceptable 

 conclusion than has hitherto been arrived 

 at. I was disappointed, however, to find 

 him surmounting the difficulties of the sub- 

 ject by assuming that the " typical and 

 primary state of matter is a gas," which 

 " is not a group of absolute solids, but is 

 elastic to the core." 



I do not propose to review nor criti- 

 cise these learned articles of Judge Stallo, 

 though there are various portions that I 

 think quite vulnerable to criticism ; but I 

 must confess that the idea of an unparticled 

 elastic body is to me an utter impossibility. 

 The subject presents very grave difficul- 

 ties under any view of the case. For, if we 

 assume the existence of an ultimate solid 

 particle, universal force cannot be con- 

 served, because the interference of solid 

 particles must destroy motion, and there- 

 fore force. Hence, in that view of the 

 case, we must have a continual destruction, 



