248 
20. Atoms are limited by law. It is established that all 
atoms possess the same physical properties, and obey the same 
laws. The molecules of matter are evidently as sharply 
defined, as unworn, as at the first. They adhere to the law 
of their limitations, thus going far to prove that they have no 
inherent power of change. Use as we may the most penetrating 
powers of the microscopist, or the subtlest analysis of the 
chemist, or the more extended methods of the astronomer, 
we find every material object bounded and governed by law. 
The eternity of matter, though a conceivable idea, is yet 
unphilosophical, because unwarranted by what we know, 
and as we accept this conclusion it becomes impossible to 
avoid the question, “ Whence, then, its limits ? ” If the 
waxing and the waning of all natural phenomena be found 
to extend to the whole Kosmos, and to characterize all the 
operations of nature, through all time, the question im- 
mediately occurs, “What set on foot the waxing and the 
waning ? ” If, as we believe, these cannot be accounted for, 
save on the theistical conception, we claim for the latter a 
place in every complete system of philosophy. The idea of 
many modern writers is that, by the aid of science, we may 
attain a knowledge of the very nature of matter itself. But 
Professor Tait observes, on the contrary, that “ nothing is 
more preposterously unscientific than to assert that with the 
utmost strides attempted by science, we should necessarily 
be sensibly nearer to a conception of the ultimate nature of 
matter.”* 
21. Professor Clerk Maxwell said, at Liverpool, in 1870, 
“ In tracing back the history of matter, Science is arrested 
when she assures herself, on the one hand, that the molecule 
has been made, and on the other, that it has not been made 
by any of the processes we call natural.” An eternal pro- 
gression is an impossibility ; it is a contradiction, for progress 
supposes an end towards which it moves. 
22. The evolutionary supposition is contradicted by fact, for 
on this supposition all development must have begun alike, and 
all be at the same stage at every moment in time, whereas we 
find its subjects in every possible stage at the same time. 
23. Force is limited. By the correlation of force we get 
the fact of an energy working through various modes, the 
source of all change. We know of it only in its limited con- 
dition as it operates through matter. However mysterious 
may be the union between matter and force, we never find the 
latter apart from a molecule of the former. Pursue the idea 
* Rtctnt Advances, p. 284. 
