Recent discoveries have only increased the wonder and potentiality of the cortex. Each atom has proved to be a remarkable constellation of electrons, a colossal reservoir of energy. The atom of hydrogen contains about 1,000 electrons, the atom of carbon 12,000, the atom of nitrogen 14,000, the atom of oxygen 16,000, and the atom of sulphur 32,000. These electrons circulate within the infinitesimal space of the atom at a speed of from 10,000 to 90,000 miles a second. It would take 340,000 barrels of powder to impart to a bullet the speed with which some of these particles dart out of their groups. A gramme of hydrogen—a very tiny portion of the simplest gas—contains energy enough to lift a million tons more than a hundred yards.
Of these astounding arsenals of energy, the atoms, we have, on the lowest computation, at least 600 million billion in the cortex of the human brain.
Scientists, says Professor Olerich, in his book, "A Modern Look at the Universe," estimate that the chemical atom is so infinitesimally small that it requires a group of not less than a billion to make the group barely visible under the most powerful microscope, and a thousand such groups would have to be put together in order to make it just visible to the naked eye as a mere speck floating in the sunbeam.
The microscope reveals innumerable animalcules in the hundredth part of a drop of water. They all eat, digest, move and from all appearances of their frolics, they are endowed with sensation and ability of enjoyment. What then shall we say of the minuteness of the food they eat; of the blood that surges through their veins; of their nervous system that thrills and guides them? Their minutest organs must be composed of molecules, atoms, ions and electrons inconceivably smaller than are the organs themselves.
Is there any god in a celestial field who could care for the movements which occur in the molecules constituting a hundredth part of a drop of water, not to speak of those which occur in the bodies of its myriads of inhabitants? And what shall we say of all the inorganic and organic movements in a small cup of whole drops of water, let alone those of a great ocean of them?
But why go further into this subject? Is not the utter childishness of the orthodox representative of a supernaturalistic interpretation of religion, who credits his god with the governance of the motions occurring in the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms of this globe, leaving out of account those of its solar system, and of other systems which constitute the universe, sufficiently manifest?
If you say that the motions which issue in the phenomena of the universe are regulated by a law which was once for all willed by the god of the Christian interpretation of religion, I ask why the law should be credited to the willing of this god rather than to that of the god of Jewish, Mohammedan or Buddhistic interpretation.
Newton took the first of the six initiatory steps in the long way which led to the conclusion that the universe is self-existing, self-sustaining and self-governing, by showing that all the movements of the solar systems were necessarily what they have been by reason of a matter-force law, gravitation. This discovery is the most momentous event in the whole history of mankind.
Laplace took the second step by showing that the cosmic nebulae contain within themselves all the potentialities necessary to the formation of solar systems.
Lavoisier took the third step by showing that the matter which enters into the constitution of the universe is an eternality.