249 
as we may, wo are ultimately brought face to face with Force 
as a power working through matter, imprisoned always, yet 
ever free to move from one goal to another. When we term 
it Physical Force, Vital Force, or Volition Force, we have 
only expressed the idea of a power with law for its limits. 
Although energy is so readily convertible, its sum total cannot 
be added to, nor reduced. In quantity, as well as quality, it 
has absolute limits. We find it almost impossible to conceive 
of the minuteness of the particles of joint matter and force 
Avhich science compels us to acknowledge. We are told that 
every molecule in a mass of hydrogen, at ordinary temperature 
and pressure, has, on the average, 17,700,000,000 collisions 
per second with other particles. 
24. Perpetual motion is impossible, not only on account of 
inevitable change of form in materials, but because you cannot 
transfer back again all the force which you transpose into heat. 
Some of the heat is lost in the process, and the possibility of 
a perpetual equivalent is destroyed. 
25. The absolute creation and absolute destruction of matter 
or of force are equally beyond scientific conception, but the 
translation of either from or into some form imperceptible to 
us is an everyday occurrence. Nor does matter or force ever 
escape from the dominion of law. No atom is forgotten by 
the regulations which fix and limit its being. Evolution is an 
orderly process, leading to impassable limits. 
26. The whole course of the universe is the collective result 
of what are called the Laws of Nature. Dr. Wlxewell puts 
it, “All things are ordered by number and weight and 
measure ; ‘ God/ as was said by the ancients, ( works by 
geometry the legislation of the material universe is neces- 
sarily delivered in the language of mathematics ; the stars in 
their courses are regulated by the properties of conic sections, 
and the winds depend on arithmetical and geometrical pro- 
gressions of elasticity and pressure.”* 
27. Creation is limited in time. Sir William Thompson and 
the physicists make out that, assuming the continuance of 
present physical laws, the earth cannot have been in existence 
more than from ten to fifteen millions of years. The present 
thermal condition of the earth requires that it should have 
actually come into existence as a globe within this definite 
limit. 
28. We now know that a part of the light and heat of the 
sun and stars goes out into space, and does not return; and 
that a part of the motion of the great bodies in the universe 
* Bridgwater Treatise, p. 
