Force which first moved them,-which moved them in parallel lines,-which deflected them from the perpendicular,—as assumed by the hypothesis?

"It is certain," according to "the doctrine of Evolution," "that the existing world lay, potentially, in the cosmic vapour." But where it lay before the cosmic vapour existed, deponent saith not. "The fundamental proposition of Evolution" is, as we have seen, "that the whole world, living and not living, is the result of the mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of the forces possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed." 1 Fundamental,

however, as Professor Huxley declares it to be, it is very far indeed from "The First Beginning."

This "nebulosity was composed" of certain "molecules." But nebulosity is a state or condition; not a substance. Like the rigidity of an iron bar, or the malleability of gold-leaf, or the ductility of copper wire, "nebulosity' is a word not of matter, but of mode. denotes a property, or it specifies a condition; but it does not distinguish, still less does it

It

1 Professor Huxley: "Critiques and Addresses," p. 305.

define, a substance. It is characteristic of unintelligible hypotheses, not less than of "cosmic gas." In this instance, however, let that it was caused,"

us back in the search a "first beginning,”

it pass. We will not say -that word might lead for a vera causa to but only that it was composed." We will not even inquire who "composed" it. it. And yet, if it were permitted us to inquire at all, we might perhaps be excused for asking, How do you know that this nebulosity was "primitive"? or that its constituent "molecules" were "possessed" of forces? or that these forces were controlled by "definite laws"? or that the relation between them was that of "mutual interaction"? or "that the whole world, living and not living," the molecules themselves included,-" is the result" solely and exclusively of the "mutual interaction" which you have imagined?

What a tissue of conjectures is here! And yet all this is assumed as 'certain," and is postulated as "the fundamental proposition of Evolution."

But now, suppose it certain: what then? It leaves us as far as ever from a knowledge of "the first beginnings." It tells us of "forces" controlled by "definite laws." But if

it tells us truly, then the law is the controlling Power, and has a priority over the powers controlled. Then "the forces possessed by the molecules" were at best subordinate and secondary: the "definite laws" alone were primary and supreme. But laws never make themselves. Who made these? and who made them thus distinctly "definite "

"?

But even their definiteness is not greater than their complexity. And this complexity -immeasurably beyond our power of exploration-is everywhere adjusted to the attainment of a common end. Who originated a complexity so intricate, yet so illimitable? Who established this unvarying adjustment of it-in the very "first beginning"? For we are now asked to imagine space filled with a frictionless fluid; to suppose that some portions of this fluid did somewhere, somehow, by some means, at some time or other, become "rotational;" and that having by rotation gained rigidity, they can now, by the latest triumphs of hydrodynamics, be "proved" to be indivisible and indestructible. Let it be granted. Granted that light, heat, sound, electricity, magnetism, are molecular movements mutually transmutable; that arrested molar movement displays itself as molecular movement; that the pressure of

a gas is due to the varying motion of its molecules impinging on the walls of the vessel that contains it; that the rigidity, or spaceoccupying power of matter, is due to the formation of vortices in a frictionless ether, and that each vortex-atom is thenceforth indestructible; when the reality of the conceptions thus assumed has been granted, then by exactly so much has the absolute necessity been increased of assigning-at "the first beginning" -a First Cause, equal not only to the origination of Matter and of Force, but equal to the origination of matter thus constituted, and of force thus adjusted.

Evolution is thus seen to be the measure of Involution. Whatever has been evolved in the Effect was previously involved in the Cause. To deny this is to affirm that the effect may transcend the cause. If therefore-though in utter contempt of scientific verity-we were to resolve all chemical forces into forces mechanical, all life into chemistry, and the infinite diversity of living beings into mere variety in the play of molecular forces, ultimately resolving itself into a motion or motions of the universal ether, we should simply have increased by so much our previous estimate of the Power which at the "first beginning"-was able

thus "potentially" to endow "the cosmic vapour."

Matter, Force, Order, Law, Diversity in Unity, Concord in Complexity: they are all known to us, but not one of them is known as self-originated. Distinct in character, definite in operation, invariable in result: who made them so? You trace "the whole world, living and not living,” to certain "properties" of Matter, acted upon by certain capacities of Force, operating in an invariable Order, under the reign of Law. You do well. Pursue your induction to "The First Beginnings." Whence came those "properties" of matter? those capacities of force? Order could not regulate them before Matter received them. Could Matter create them? Through all the "immeasurable intervals of time and space," Matter has never created one single atom.

Causa causarum :

what was that? Whatever it was, you will not be able to ignore it, except by refusing to go back to "The First Beginning."

That "first" beginning was followed by a second. Immovably based on the deep foundations of the inorganic world, there rises everywhere, elaborate and multifarious, the mysterious superstructure of organization and Life.

M