Consequently, ethereal atoms, elementary molecules, compound or chemical molecules, particles of gaseous bodies, liquids, solids—such is the hierarchy of phenomena.
The system is triumphantly epitomized in these words:
Atoms and motion form the universe.
Let us pause before this conclusion, the simplicity of which is not without grandeur, although the theory is absolute and hasty. Let us be allowed to interfere in the name of the notion of causality, in the name of that metaphysics to which the system itself, although taking its starting-point from facts alone, renders homage by its generalizations and by its synthesis. If it confined itself exclusively to its conclusion, that atom and movement form the supreme axiom of the universe, we should have downright materialism. The author avoids this absolute conclusion, which would cause us, moreover, to go outside the limits of scientific research, and he admits that even in motion there are original causes which remain entirely unknown.
But this cannot suffice. Our mind sees this reserve and will not rest satisfied with it.
If the system merely gives to ethereal atoms the intrinsic force and primitive motion which it takes away from the molecules and bodies, it only postpones the difficulty and avoids the true solution. It merely admits an effect without assigning to it an origin or a reason of being. It does not indicate the primary cause of motion; it does not make known the prime mover, which neither facts nor reason can place in the atoms or in the phenomena.
Nor can the formation of worlds be explained by atoms and motion. The author[200] gives up facts, reality, and the logic of his own system when he supposes some of the chief primitive atoms forming the centre of a group for several others, and thus constituting a sphere. Then, after this operation in the universal mass, the molecular groups appear gifted with gravity and enter into that evolution which constitutes the admirable order of the universe.
We have no longer modern science arriving, by way of decomposition and analysis, at results as curious as they are incontestable. It is, in truth, but the renewal of an old system which goes as far back as ancient philosophy—to Leucippus, to Democritus, to Epicurus; a system without foundation or reality, which brings us to gross materialism, and gives us no rational or experimental explanation of phenomena.
For whence have these atoms come? Do you give them their reason of being by simply calling them primitive? Do they exist from all eternity, or have they created themselves? After being proclaimed indivisible points, they are, contrary to this principle of unity, made unequal and preponderating. Whence do they derive these contradictory, and at the same time indispensable characters, which enable them to perform their functions? Who has given them the first motion necessary for their meeting? Or, if they have been eternally in motion, does it not follow that the formations that are attributed to them must be also eternal? What causes them to produce ponderable molecules and to become heavy bodies while they are essentially imponderable and devoid of attraction?
As for us, a friend of truth, and believing that it can never be opposed to itself, having in its regard no fear or party prejudice, we are disposed to accept willingly the results given by scientific observation and experience, provided there be no disposition to draw conclusions from them which are not legitimate. We are far from disputing that matter is one in its grand simplicity, and that it is reducible to elements of one species; that phenomena of a single order, motion, produce all the effects of nature which we admire. The spiritualist philosophy will readily find in these atoms their first author, God, and in these movements God, the prime mover.