167 
the molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of generation 
or destruction. None of the processes of nature, since the 
time when nature began, have produced the slightest differ- 
ence in the proportions of any molecule. We are therefore 
not enabled to ascribe either their existence, or the identity 
of their properties, to the operation of any of the causes which 
we call natural. On the other hand, the exact quality of each 
to all the others of the same kiud gives it, as Sir John Her- 
schel has well said, the essential character of a manufactured 
article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self- 
existent Science is incompetent to reason upon 
the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached 
the utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have ad- 
mitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self- existent, 
it must have been created Though in the course of 
ages catastrophes have occurred, may have occurred, and may 
yet occur in the heavens, though ancient systems may be dis- 
solved, and new systems evolved out of their ruins, the 
molecules out of which these systems are built — the foundation- 
stones of the material universe — remain unbroken and unworn. 
“ They continue this day as they were created, perfect in 
number, measure, and weight, and, from the ineffaceable cha- 
racter impressed on them we may learn that those aspirations 
after accuracy in measurement, truth in statement, and justice 
in action, which we reckon among our noblest attributes as 
men, are ours because they are the essential constituents of the 
image of Him who in the beginning created not only the 
heaven and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and 
earth consist.” 
I cannot refrain from adding also the concluding words of 
Sir William Thomson's address from the Presidential chair 
of the British Association at Edinburgh, in 1871, as they are 
of a similarly religious spirit. 
“ I feel,” he says, “ profoundly convinced that the argument 
of design has been greatly too much lost sight of in recent 
zoological researches Overwhelmingly strong proofs 
of intelligent and benevolent design lie all around us, and if 
ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn us 
away from them for a time, they come back upon us with 
irresistible force, showing to us through nature the influence 
of a free will, and teaching us that all living beings depend on 
one ever-acting Creator and Euler.” 
We have thus had the testimony of two great living 
physicists to their belief in a personal God, the maker and 
preserver of all things ; and it will be desirable to add in this 
VOL. x. N 
