The Origin oj Force. 



79 



ginning. No matter how feeble or how forceful that beginning may 

 have been, it is still scientifically true that the beginning of motion 

 was a reality. Any other assumption is illogical and unscientific, 

 and would annihilate chronology. Motion must necessarily have had 

 a beginning; for the further back we place the commencement of 

 motion^ the more remote becomes the period when the Laurentian 

 continent first appeared, and the longer becomes each age in the 

 history of the universe, until infinity itself will fail to furnish room 

 for the beginning. 



Motion is life. Absence of motion is death. How came this 

 motionless mass of ether to move ? If it had had life within itself, it 

 would have moved from all eternity. This assumption would not 

 only annihilate chronology ; it would establish pantheism. The same 

 doctrine would follow from a concession that motion was generated 

 by this etherial mass. It is, however, scientifically impossible for a 

 dead universe to generate life in itself. Motionless molecules will 

 not move without the application of an external force. Overlooking 

 this limitless sea of ether, therefore, we can safely assert it as a 

 scientific fact that unless there is a Life external to itself, capable of 

 applying force to it, it will never move. This limitless expanse of 

 death necessitates a limitless Life for its awakening. 



In the beginning, therefore, the universe was filled with an etherial 

 fluid, which we can liken to nothing except to say that it was like 

 the palpable, congealed, perceptible breath of God ; and there came 

 a time when the all-pervading imperceptible Spirit which exhaled 

 it, gave it momentum, and began to fashion it to suit His purpose. 



This limitless mass of motionless ether could never have been 

 moved by anything less than an Omnipotent Power. God and God 

 only, could have fashioned the heavens and the earth therefrom. 

 State in scientific phraseology as you please the nature of this drear 

 waste of monotonous matter, and you must admit it to have been 

 at one time motionless. It is impossible to interject life within it 

 except from a living source. If it had a self-generating power, it 

 must have had the power of self-restraint, to hold that power from 

 all eternity until the time had come fOr its exercise. That is to make 

 it God. It is scientifically impossible to imagine molecules in 

 motion from all eternity, and yet not effecting changes in form such as 

 we are able to trace in the universe now. It is equally impossible to 

 suppose that anything less than Infinite energy moved this mighty 

 mass. This Omnipotent energy began the work of fashioning the 

 heavens and the earth in the beginning, when the time therefor had 



