19 
own consciousness the conclusion that the Creator formed the 
atoms and the ether from the beginnings assigning to them 
the qualities, and disposing them in the order, which by His 
wisdom He foreknew to be adapted to give rise through the 
exertion of His power to laws of operation whereby His pur- 
poses in the creation -would be fulfilled. It seems to me not 
too much to assert that in making the primary entities such 
as to be intelligible to us through sensation and expei’ience, 
and the laws of operation such as to be deducible from the 
primary facts by human reasoning, the Creator purposed that, 
together with other ends, His creation should have the effect 
of revealing to man His wisdom, power, and Godhead. 
(3.) It is surely reasonable to admit that the Creator of the 
primary entities and Disposer of their mutual relations, retains 
for exercise, when for special purposes it seems good to Him, 
the prerogative of changing existing conditions in respect to 
the number, magnitudes, and arrangements of the atoms 
(without alteration of essential qualities), and that too whether 
the substance be inorganic or organic. It must be fully ad- 
mitted that to do this is to work a miracle. At the same time 
it may be maintained that in so doing there is no violation of 
laws, but only change of conditions under which established 
laws operate. It will thus be seen that the recognition in our 
philosophy of two kinds of facts frees it from that antagonism 
to the admission of miracles which forms so prominent a 
feature in much of the philosophy accepted at the present 
time. 
(4.) I come now to the conclusion of the general argument. 
If the foregoing course of reasoning has sufficed to certify 
that matter must have come into existence by the will and 
operation of a personal and intelligent Creator, by the same 
reasoning it is proved that matter is destructible, inasmuch as 
a power that created it can destroy it, and if it be indestruc- 
tible, it could not have been created. This is an axiom so 
self-evident that there is no way of sustaining it by argument. 
I leave to those who maintain the indestructibility of matter, 
the task which their position imposes upon them of proving 
that it was not created. 
24. The preceding inferences from the three hypotheses 
have immediate relation to the quality of matter. Others are 
deducible from them with which the quality of force is intimately 
concerned. Before mentioning these, it is necessary to recall 
to notice the reasoning in secs. 2-4. It is there argued that in 
physical science we have to do with immaterial as well as 
material facts, and that the former are perceived only in co- 
ordination with the other kind. This view was exemplified by 
e 2 
