a time was taken away again. The acceleration of rate was here produced not by any suspension of the laws of motion or of gravitation, but by bringing into play for a time a special force which left the laws of motion and of gravitation perfectly intact, and yet brought about the result that we have supposed to have been observed.

"It will probably have been perceived that in what I have just been saying I have had in view the question of the abstract possibility of what are called miracles. Admit the Existence of God, of a personal God, and the possibility of miracles follows at once; if the laws of nature are carried on in accordance with His will He Who willed them may will their suspension. And if any difficulty should be felt as to their suspension, we are not even obliged to suppose that they have been suspended." 1

1

Of the proofs of the existence of God, Stokes lays most stress on that derived from design; for, that nature does manifest design, he considers undeniable. Having, for instance, concluded a description of the eye, he writes: "I think the evidence of design which it affords must be to most minds well nigh overwhelming, though at the same time, I grant that it requires some knowledge of the laws of light, and also of the structure of the eye itself to feel the full force of the argument."

Inasmuch as Darwin's theory is by many supposed to invalidate the argument from design, Stokes examines in some detail the doctrine of evolution. He begins by pointing out that Darwin, before he can speak of the struggle for life or the survival of the fittest has to assume certain postulates, "the existence of life; the power possessed by living things, whether animal or vegetable, of reproducing their kind; the general similarity of offspring to parents, combined with small variations of detail". But if these are the indispensable postulates of the theory then, according to Stokes, the

1 Natural Theology 22-25.

2 Ib. 41.

3 Ib.

principle of the survival of the fittest by no means supplants and makes superfluous a purposive Creator. For if we do not accept His existence whence are we to derive life, the power of reproduction, the transmission of qualities once. acquired?

"It seems to me likely enough that this principle may really operate to a certain extent, and so far as it does, it points out a sort of self-acting mechanism, founded in its action on the postulates with which we started, for adapting the structure of the living thing to the requirements of its environment. This however does not destroy, but only alters the argument of design. If, indeed, the postulates of the theory were taken as self-existent and uncaused, then I grant the argument would fall to the ground. But I have heard on good authority that Darwin himself regarded the argument from design as rather elevated than destroyed by the adoption of his theory." 1

"But even supposing the theory to be accepted as accounting for the permanence of more or less neighbouring species, it seems to me inconceivable that it should be competent to bridge over the interval which separates remote forms. There are structures so complex, so artificial, so eminently (to all appearance at least) having a purpose to serve, that it seems inconceivable that they could have been built by a mere selection of haphazard variations from a type which in consequence of this selection undergoes a slow secular change. Take, for example, that exquisitely contrived organ, the eye.... It seems to me well-nigh inconceivable how any one who studies these various arrangements, so far as man has been able to follow them, can imagine them to be merely the cumulative effect of casual variations selected in the manner supposed, or can fail to be impressed, perhaps if he does so regard them, with the idea that they were designed for the office which we find them to fulfil."2

A writer in the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1902 ranked Lord Rayleigh, Lord Kelvin, and Sir George Stokes

as the three greatest physicists of the day 11. We have seen the views of all three as to the relation between science and religion.

3. SUPPLEMENTARY.

We have now dealt at some length with the pioneers in Heat, Light and Electricity, and the reader will have perceived how very far they are from declaring unanimously against Christianity. Before leaving this branch of our subject we desire to add one or two distinguished names, which for various reasons have not been included in the preceding two sections.

"For many years, longer indeed than an average lifetime, there was to be met in the Academy of Sciences in Paris a venerable figure, no less remarkable for his lively interest and constant interventions in the discussions of that learned and brilliant body, than for the universal honour and respect which he received from his colleagues. Tall and powerfully built, he retained beneath the snow of years the vigour and resolution of youth; his pale face mobile and clear-cut, was the mirror of a subtle and rapid mind; his voice, although thin with age, was firm and impressive, and in the unconscious modulation of the moment gave token of unwavering conviction. . . . The whole presence and bearing of this remarkable man was that of a cosmopolitan savant, who found the only content worth having in the propagation of those scientific and moral principles to which he was so ardently attached."

The scientist of whom these glowing words were spoken by Von Martius, the botanist, at a meeting of

the Bavarian Academy was J. B. Biot1 (1774-1862). He was one of the most celebrated men of his day, a leader in Physics, a historian of the science, and a brilliant stylist. He enjoyed membership of three of the five French Academies, and it is impossible to-day to read a text-book of Physics without finding honourable mention of his name. His original research-work was done mainly in the field of Optics; but he was also engaged for several years in Spain and the North of England as a member of the French Commission for the measurement of the degrees of longitude, and as a teacher of Mathematics and Physics he exercised a wide influence. He possessed, says Von Martius, "a rare lucidity of intellect, which, unaccompanied by any great imaginative power, found its real attraction in the nobility of justice, moral worth, and absolute truth". "Biot was an austere, independent, inexorable critic who believed exclusively in pure reason. In accordance with its dictates he ordered his life, ambitions, and studies, and no other consideration had any weight with him."

As for his religious opinions, Biot was not always a believing Christian. For many years the recollection of his First Communion was the only relic left to him of a pious boyhood. Under the influence of the circle that gathered round Laplace his indifference developed into a vague Deism. But his experience of Deists and Atheists and of the practical fruits of Christian belief, as he saw them in the lives of some of his nearest relatives, led him back to the faith of his childhood.

1 Gedächtnisrede on March 28th 1862 in v. Martius, Akademische Denkreden, München 1866, 456.

For the last thirty years of his life he was a fervent Catholic, and he so continued to the end. His friend and confessor, Père Ravignan, could justly characterise him as a true Christian savant, as he does in a letter acknowledging the receipt of Biot's memoir of the mathematician Cauchy: "That is Cauchy to the life, and you yourself to the life! You manifest to all in the noblest language an intimate alliance between true science and true faith." 1 But this memoir was by no means Biot's only confession of faith. "He had", as Abbé Moigno2 tells us, "shown the liveliest joy at the entrance of his grand-son M. Millière into the priesthood, and it was an affecting sight to see the august old savant receiving Holy Communion in the Basilica of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont from the hands of the young priest who called him grandfather."

Biot's return to the Church was not regarded by all with favourable eyes. If Sainte-Beuve sought to depreciate his reputation as a scientist, and others busied themselves in exaggerating the blemishes of his life, we must ascribe this in part to anti-Christian feeling. This feeling found further expression in the attempt to fill the chair in the Academy left vacant by Biot's death, by the election of an atheist. The candidate

1 A. de Ponlevoy, Vie du R. P. Xavier de Ravignan de la Comp. de Jésus II 15, Paris 1900, chap. 27, 387. For de Ravignan's relations to Biot cf. chap. 19, 131–133.

2 In his newspaper Cosmos XX, Paris 1862, 203. Moigno characterizes the same Biot as a "chrétien convaincu, sincère et pratiquant. Son retour à la foi datait de près de trente ans; un des premiers nous en reçûmes la confidence". Cf. Lefort, Un savant chrétien, J.-B. Biot, in Le Correspondant déc. 1867; U. Maynard in Bibliographie catholique XL, Paris 1868, 93.