But since unbelievers are not philosophers, though they call themselves so, and may not be able to realize the value of an argument based on metaphysical grounds, [pg 579] and since we hear them repeat without end that science—their degraded science—has done away with the old dream of creation, we deem it expedient to appeal to science itself, and bring forward from it a clear proof of the fact of creation. This proof is to be found in the very constitution of the primitive molecules of bodies, as Prof. Clerk-Maxwell has recently shown in a very remarkable lecture on molecules.[129] His scientific argument is contained in the following passage:
“The molecule, though indestructible, is not a hard, rigid body, but is capable of internal movements, and, when these are excited, it emits rays, the wave-length of which is a measure for the time of vibration of a molecule. By means of the spectroscope the wave-length of different kinds of light may be compared to within one ten-thousandth part. In this way it has been ascertained not only that molecules taken from every specimen of hydrogen in our laboratories have the same set of periods of vibration, but that light having the same set of periods of vibration is emitted from the sun and from the fixed stars. We are thus assured that molecules of the same nature as those of our hydrogen exist in those distant regions, or at least did exist when the light by which we see them was emitted.... Light, which is to us the sole evidence of the existence of these distant worlds, tells us also that each of them is built of molecules of the same kind as those which we find on earth. A molecule of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius or Arcturus, executes its vibrations in precisely the same time. Each molecule, therefore, throughout the universe, bears impressed on it the stamp of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives of Paris or the double royal cubit of the temple of Karnac. No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of molecules; for evolution necessarily implies continuous change, and the molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of generation or destruction. None of the processes of nature, since the time when nature began, have produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule. We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules or the identity of their properties to the operation of any of the causes which we call natural. On the other hand, the exact equality of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John Herschel has well said, the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent. Thus we have been led, along a strictly scientific path, very near to the point at which science must stop. Not that science is debarred from studying the internal mechanism of a molecule which she cannot take to pieces, any more than from investigating an organism which she cannot put together. But in tracing back the history of matter science is arrested when she assures herself, on the one hand, that the molecule has been made, and, on the other, that it has not been made by any of the processes we call natural. Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing.[130] We have reached the [pg 580] utmost limit of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that, because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent, it must have been created. That matter, as such, should have certain fundamental properties, that it should exist in space and be capable of motion, that its motion should be persistent, and so on, are truths which may, for anything we know, be of the kind which metaphysicians call necessary. We may use our knowledge of such truths for purposes of deduction, but we have no data for speculating as to their origin. But that there should be exactly so much matter and no more in every molecule of hydrogen is a fact of a very different order.... Natural causes, as we know, are at work, which tend to modify, if they do not at length destroy, all the arrangements and dimensions of the earth, and of the whole solar system. But though, in the course of ages, catastrophes have occurred, and may yet occur, in the heavens; though ancient systems may be dissolved, and new systems evolved out of their ruins, the molecules out of which those systems are built, the foundation-stones of the material universe, remain unbroken and unworn. They continue to this day as they were created, perfect in number and measure and weight, and from the ineffaceable characters impressed on them we may learn that those aspirations after accuracy in measurement, truth in statement, and justice in action, which we reckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they are essential constituents of the image of Him who, in the beginning, created not only the heaven and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and earth consist.”
Such is the verdict of true science as interpreted by the eminent English mathematician and natural philosopher. The whole is so instructive and interesting that we think we have no need of apologizing for the length of the quotation.
Essential properties of matter.
The constituents of things are revealed to us by their properties. For, as every being acts according as it is in act, and suffers according as it is in potency, from the activity and the passivity with which a being is endowed we can easily find out the special nature of the act and of the potency which constitute its metaphysical essence. Hence, if we wish to ascertain the essential constitution of material substance, we must first ascertain and thoroughly understand the properties which are common to all material substances, and without which no material substance can be conceived. In doing this we must guard against confounding, as many scientists do, the essential properties of matter with the general properties of bodies. Extension, impenetrability, divisibility, porosity, etc., are general properties of bodies; but it does not follow that they are essential properties of material substance as such, as they may arise from accidental composition. Those properties alone are essential which are altogether primitive, unchangeable, and involved in the principles of the substance; and such properties, as we shall see, are, so far as material substance is concerned, the three following: active power to produce local motion, passivity for receiving local motion, and inertia. These three properties correspond to the three constituents of material substance.
There are philosophers who deny [pg 581] that material things have any active power. They know that matter is inert, and they cannot see how activity can be reconciled with inertia. There are others, on the contrary, who, for a similar reason, being unable to deny the activity of bodies, deny their inertia. From what we are going to say it will be manifest that these philosophers have never known exactly what is meant in natural science by the inertia of matter.
Other writers, especially those of the old school, while admitting the three essential properties of matter which we have just mentioned, contend that material substance has a fourth important and connatural, if not essential, property—viz., continuous extension—without which, they say, nothing material can be conceived. They further teach, and would fain have us believe, that all material substance is endowed with extension and resistance; and many of them think that extension and resistance constitute the essence of matter. This last opinion is very common among philosophical writers, and deserves the most careful examination, as it bears very heavily on an essential point of the controversy in which we have to engage.
Let us see, then, first, what we have to think regarding the activity, the passivity, and the inertia of matter; and, when we have done with these, we shall take up the question of material continuity, of which we hope to give a full analysis and a satisfactory solution.
Activity, passivity, and inertia.
The special character by which the phenomena of the material world are recognized consists in their being brought about by local motion. For it is a well-known fact that in things purely material no change takes place but through local movements; so that we cannot even conceive a change in the material world without a displacement of matter. Hence all the actions of matter upon matter tend to produce local movement, or to modify it; and all passion of the matter acted on is a reception of movement.