492 
Genesis of Matter. 
[October, 
“ wild bull with fireworks on its horns and eagle gnawing 
at its back ” will ever rage so violently ; it will strike the 
side thousands of times in a second, and according to some 
it will continue to do this for ever and ever. Nay, is it not 
true that Force is immortal, and this motion must go on for 
ever. An eminent thinker has put this forward as a funda- 
mental characteristic of atoms, that each, although formed 
out of the original material, has impressed upon it a pecu- 
liar motion, which is its personality, and constitutes its 
individuality and peculiarity as an element. That may be 
so in a sense, but it is not the gaseous motion which is the 
original creation, for that we know ceases, unless we can 
prove the same quality of motion to be existing even when 
the gaseous state ceases. And, after all, what is an atom 
separate from its motion ? Is it not true that Force and 
Matter are one — that Matter moves by its own intrinsic and 
eternal quality of motion ? The exaCt motion of gases is 
not eternal ; the same frantic atom of hydrogen will stop 
its violent movements, give them up with one mighty gasp, 
— and so far as we know will never resume them, — and ap- 
parently on slight provocation, by a touch of chlorine, of 
oxygen, or of cold. Hydrogen, then, rages only under cer- 
tain circumstances, dances only when motion is put into it ; 
its motion is not eternal and unchangeable ; it may be frozen 
into a liquid ; it may be made into a solid, for ever inactive, 
and, like any poor piece of stolid matter, it may lie for ever 
dead. True you may give it life again, and it will dance on 
as merry as before ; but the life must come to it. 
Some people think that this gaseous motion is a perpetual 
one, and that they have at last discovered it in gases ; but 
no — the fire seems to be required to keep up the motion of 
the hydrogen, as it keeps up the motion of the steam-engine, 
and when that goes out both cease. Matter is very dead ; 
it may, however, be eternal : this hydrogen may move about 
as long as it is supplied with heat, and there may be no 
change in it for ever. We cannot suppose it to wear on, to 
weary in its course, unless we find an analogy in the loss of 
heat, when it calms down, and by loss of heat finds rest. 
It is clear, then, that it is not a primitive quality of hydro- 
gen to move for ever as a gas, only if it is set in motion it 
will move in a certain way. But when the motion ceases 
as gaseous motion, does it still go on in a liquid or solid ? 
It may be so, but we have no real proof ; and at any rate 
the motion, although of a fundamentally similar kind, 
cannot be identically the same. Nobody can imagine an 
atom doing anything but move, and so to keep up its 
