THE CONSTITUTION OF MATTER. - 29 
with those loftier convictions, more precious and as solid, 
which form our moral and religious inheritance, and the 
crowning prerogative of our nature. The most advanced 
science rejects none of the traditions and objects to none 
of the great lasting sentiments of past ages. On the con- 
trary, it fixes the stamp of certainty on truths hitherto lack- 
ing adequate proofs, and rescues from the attacks of skep- 
ticism all that it coveted as its prey. No proof of the soul’s 
immortality is so strong as that we have drawn from 
the necessary simplicity and eternity of all the principles 
of force. Nothing bears witness so powerfully to the 
majestic reality of a God as the spectacle of those diversi- 
ties, all harmonious, which rule the infinite range of forces, 
and bind in unity the ordered pulses of the world. Enough 
has been said to prove the truth that the moral greatness 
and the intellectual dignity of a nation must always be 
measured by the standard of the esteem and credit it accords 
to high metaphysical speculations, and chiefly to such as 
relate to the constitution of matter. Meditation on the 
constitution of matter is the best method of teaching us to 
know mind, and to understand that every thing must be 
referred to it, because from it every thing flows. 
