The existence of the
many forms of matter, the properties of each form, the distribution of
each: all this Science must in the last resort assume.
But I say in the last resort. For it is possible, and Science soon makes
it evident that it is true, that some forms of matter grow out of other
forms. There are endless combinations. And the growth of new out of old
forms is of necessity a sequence, and falls under the law of
invariability of sequences, and becomes the subject-matter of Science.
As in each separate case Science asserts each event of to-day to have
followed by a law of invariable sequence on the events of yesterday; the
earth has reached the precise point in its orbit now which was
determined by the law of gravitation as applied to its motion at the
point which it reached a moment ago; the weather of the present hour has
come by meteorological laws out of the weather of the last hour; the
crops and the flocks now found on the surface of the habitable earth are
the necessary outcome of preceding harvests and preceding flocks and of
all that has been done to maintain and increase them; so, too, if we
look at the universe as a whole, the present condition of that whole is,
if the scientific postulate of invariable sequence be admitted, and in
as far as it is admitted, the necessary outcome of its former condition;
and all the various forms of matter, whether living or inanimate, must
for the same reason and with the same limitation be the necessary
outcome of preceding forms of matter.
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