What an atrocious piece of arrogance, therefore, it is to assert
that "none of the processes of nature, _since the time when nature began_,
have produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule!"
No one can entertain a higher respect for Professor Clark Maxwell than I
do; but a single sentence of such a kind as this cannot leave two opinions
in any impartial mind concerning his competency to deal with such subjects.
I am therefore sorry to see this absurd argument approvingly incorporated
in Professor Flint's work. He says, "I believe that no reply to these words
of Professor Clark Maxwell is possible from any one who holds the ordinary
view of scientific men as to the ultimate constitution of matter. They must
suppose every atom, every molecule, to be of such a nature, to be so
related to others and to the universe generally, that things may be such as
we see them to be; but this their fitness to be built up into the structure
of the universe is a proof that they have been made fit, and since natural
forces could not have acted on them while not yet existent, a supernatural
power must have created them, and created them with a view to their
manifold uses." Here the inference so confidently drawn would have been a
weak one even were we not able to see that the doctrine of natural
evolution probably applies to inorganic nature no less than to organic. For
the inference is drawn from considerations of a character so transcendental
and so remote from science, that unless we wish to be deceived by a merely
verbal argument, we must feel that the possibilities of error in the
inference are so numerous and indefinite, that the inference itself is
well-nigh worthless as a basis of belief.
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