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“ We need clearness and thoroughness here,” he exclaims. “ Two 
courses, and two only, are possible. Either let us open our doors 
freely to the conception of creative acts, or, abandoning them, let 
us radically change our notions of matter.” 
2. For myself, whilst entertaining the greatest admiration for, 
and full belief in, the atomic theory of modern chemistry, I am not 
at all disposed to adopt the second alternative, and to “ change our 
notions of matter ” to those advocated by Lucretius. I have already 
shown, to the best of my ability, the stable foundations on which 
the atomic theory rests ; and also the entirely imaginary and unsound 
theories to which Professor Tyndall would lead us if we follow him 
in this portentous change, involving all our views of what is divine 
as well as of what is human and material. 
o. I will therefore invite the learned Professor to decide upon 
his first alternative. There can be nothing unworthy of a philo- 
sopher in “ opening our doors freely to the conception of creative 
acts.” On the contrary, every prejudice that would keep the door 
closed against the examination of such a conception must be re- 
garded as unworthy of the impartiality of a philosophic mind. 
4. We find in ourselves a power altogether superior to the things 
on which our meditation is fixed, and of an entirely different 
character to the clod on which we tread. And yet we have no 
ready-formed answer to the inquiry, What is the mysterious ego, 
the all- controlling essence, which in us thinks and wills and reasons ? 
So, in the very first verse of Scripture, the existence of “ the Elohim” 
is assumed as a proposition already conceded ; and the action is 
asserted of a power originating and dominating over all that meets 
the observation of our senses. As ourselves possessors of a spiritual 
nature, we are informed that there is a spiritual Being above us. 
Not having the competence to sound the depths of our own being, 
neither can we know the One of whom the Bible speaks unless He 
reveal Himself to us. 
5. There can be nothing unphilosophical in such a disquisition. 
The only question is, whether the proposition be true or not. If 
admitted, then must the power of the Almighty Being to work 
miracles or to perform acts of special creation also be allowed, 
as even flowing necessarily from the analogy to our own nature. 
What is there (unless it be himself) that man cannot absolutely 
rule and dominate by virtue of the energy that dwells within him ; 
and this must be conceded, a fortiori, of an Almighty Being. 
6'. The formation of man is ascribed in Scripture to a work of 
special creation, the result of special consultation.* Certainly all 
must admit that man, in his destinies, as head of creation, should 
* “ And Cod saiil, Let us make man in our image,” &c. — Gen. i. 20. 
