I read the works of these great men—of many others—and became convinced that they were right, and that all the theologians—all the believers in "special creation" were absolutely wrong.
The Garden of Eden faded away, Adam and Eve fell back to dust, the snake crawled into the grass, and Jehovah became a miserable myth.
IX.
I TOOK another step. What is matter—substance? Can it be destroyed—annihilated? Is it possible to conceive of the destruction of the smallest atom of substance? It can be ground to powder—changed from a solid to a liquid—from a liquid to a gas—but it all remains. Nothing is lost—nothing destroyed.
Let an infinite God, if there be one, attack a grain of sand—attack it with infinite power. It cannot be destroyed. It cannot surrender. It defies all force. Substance cannot be destroyed.
Then I took another step.
If matter cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated, it could not have been created.
The indestructible must be uncreateable.
And then I asked myself: What is force?
We cannot conceive of the creation of force, or of its destruction. Force may be changed from one form to another—from motion to heat—but it cannot be destroyed—annihilated.