universe is not infinite in extent and complexity, an assumption for which I can see no logical basis whatever.

The Indeterminate Problem of Creation.

A second and very serious misapprehension concerning the import of a law of nature may now be pointed out. It is not uncommonly supposed that a law determines the character of the results which shall take place, as, for instance, that the law of gravity determines what force of gravity shall act upon a given particle. Surely a little reflection must render it plain that a law by itself determines nothing. It is a law plus agents obeying that law which have results, and it is no part of the law to govern or define the number and place of its own agents. Whether a particle of matter shall gravitate, depends not upon the law of Newton only, but upon the distribution of surrounding particles. The theory of gravitation may perhaps be true throughout all time and in all parts of space, and even the Creator may never find occasion to create those possible exceptions to it which I have asserted to be conceivable. Let this be as it may, and our science cannot certainly determine the question, yet the theory of gravitation itself gives no indication of the forces which may be brought to act at any point of space. The force of gravitation acting upon any particle depends, as have seen, upon the number, mass, distance, and relative position of all the other particles of matter within the bounds of space at the instant in question. assuming that all matter when once distributed through space at the Creation, was thenceforth to act in an invariable manner without subsequent interference, yet the actual configuration of matter at any moment, and F f

VOL. II.

Even

the consequent results of the law of gravitation must have been entirely a matter of free choice.

Chalmers has most distinctly pointed out that the existing collocations of the material world are at least as important as the laws which the objects obey. He remarks that a certain class of writers entirely overlook the distinction, and forget that mere laws without collocations would have afforded no security against a turbid and disorderly chaosb. Mr. J. S. Mill has recognised the truth of Chalmers' statement, without drawing the proper inferences from it. He saysd of the distribution of matter through space, We can discover nothing regular in the distribution itself; we can reduce it to no uniformity, to no law.' More lately the Duke of Argyle in his well known work on the 'Reign of Law' has drawn attention to the profound distinction between laws and collocations of causes.

The original conformation of the material universe was, so far as we can possibly tell, free from all restriction. There was unlimited space in which to frame it, and an unlimited number of material particles, each of which could be placed in any one of an infinite number of different positions. It must also be added that each particle might be endowed with any one of an infinite number of degrees of vis viva acting in any one of an infinitely infinite number of different directions. problem of Creation was, then, what a mathematician would call an indeterminate problem, and it was indeterminate in an infinitely infinite number of ways. Infinitely numerous and various universes might then have been fashioned by the various distribution of the

b First Bridgwater Treatise' (1834), pp. 16-24.

The

c System of Logic,' 5th edit. bk. III. chap. V. § 7. Chap. XVI. § 3. d Ibid. vol. i. p. 384.

original nebulous matter, although all the particles of matter should obey the one law of gravity.

Lucretius tells us how in the original rain of atoms some of these little bodies diverged from the rectilineal direction, and coming into contact with other atoms gave rise to the various combinations of substances and phenomena which exist. He omitted, indeed, to tell us whence the atoms came, or by what force some of them were caused to diverge, but surely these omissions involve the whole question. I accept the Lucretian conception of creation when properly supplemented. Every atom which existed in any point of space must have existed there previously, or must have been created there by a previously existing Power. When placed there it must have had a definite mass and a definite energy, kinetic or potential as regards other existing atoms. Now, as before remarked, an unlimited number of atoms can be placed in unlimited space in an entirely unlimited number of modes of distribution. Out of infinitely infinite choices which were open to the Creator, that one choice must have been made which has yielded the universe as it now exists.

It would indeed be a mistake to suppose that the law of gravity, when it holds true, is no restriction in the distribution of force. That law is a geometrical law, and it would in many cases be mathematically impossible, as far as we can see, that the force of gravity acting on one particle should be small while that on a neighbouring particle was great. We cannot conceive that even Omnipotent Power should make the angles of a triangle less or greater than two right angles. The primary laws of thought and the fundamental notions of the mathematical sciences do not seem to us to admit of any alteration. Into the metaphysical origin and meaning of the apparent necessity attaching to such laws I have not

attempted to inquire in this work, and it is not requisite for my present purpose. If the law of gravity were the only law of nature and the Creator had chosen to render all matter obedient to that law, there would doubtless be restrictions upon the effects derivable from any one distribution of matter.

Hierarchy of Natural Laws.

A further consideration inevitably presents itself. A natural law like that of gravitation expresses a certain uniformity in the mode of action of agents submitted to it, and this uniformity produces, as we have seen, certain geometrical restrictions upon the effects which those agents may produce. But there are other forces and laws besides those of gravity. One force may override another, and two laws may each be obeyed and may each disguise the action of the other. In the intimate constitution of matter there may be hidden springs of force which, while acting in accordance with their own fixed laws, may lead to sudden and unexpected changes. So at least it has been found from time to time in the past, and so there is every reason to believe it will be found in the future. To the ancients it seemed incredible that one lifeless stone could make another leap towards it. A piece of iron while it obeys the magnetic forces of the loadstone does not the less obey the law of gravity. A plant also gravitates downwards as regards every constituent cell or fibre, and yet it persists in growing upwards. Life altogether is an exception to the simple phenomena of mineral substances, not in the sense of disproving those laws, but in that of superadding forces of new and inexplicable character. Doubtless no law of chemistry is broken by the action of the nervous cells, and no law of physics by the pulses of the nervous

fibres, but something requires to be added to our sciences in order that we even explain these subtle phenomena.

6

Now there is absolutely nothing in science or in scientific method to warrant us in assigning any limit to this hierarchy of laws. When in many undoubted cases we find law overriding law, and at certain points in our experience producing unexpected results, we can never venture to affirm that we have exhausted the strange phenomena which may have been provided for in the original constitution of matter. The Universe might have been so designed that it should for long intervals go through the same round of almost unvaried existence, and yet so that events of exceptional character should from time to time be produced. Charles Babbage showed in that most profound and eloquent work, The Ninth Bridgwater Treatise,' that it was theoretically possible for human artists to design a machine, consisting of metallic wheels and levers, which should work invariably by one simple law of action during any finite number of steps, and yet at a fixed moment, however distant, should manifest a single breach of law. Such an engine might go on counting, for instance, the natural numbers until they might reach a number requiring for its expression a hundred million digits. 'If every letter in the volume now before the reader's eyes,' says Babbage, 'were changed into a figure, and if all the figures contained in a thousand such volumes were arranged in order, the whole together would yet fall far short of the vast induction the observer would have had in favour of the truth of the law of natural numbers... Yet shall the engine, true to the prediction of its director, after the lapse of myriads of ages, fulfil its task, and give that one, the first and only exception to that time-sanctioned law. What would have been the chances against the appeare 'Ninth Bridgwater Treatise,' p. 140.