But let us revert to the first stage and look at the nature of MATTER.

CHAPTER IV.

CREATIVE DESIGN IN INORGANIC MATTER.

I take as self-evident the enormous difficulty of self-caused, self-existent matter.  And when we see that matter acting, not irregularly or by caprice, but by law (as every class of philosopher will admit), then it is still further difficult to realize that matter not only existed as a dead, simple, inactive thing, but existed with a folded-up history inside it, a long sequence of development—­not the same for all particles, but various for each group:  so that one set proceeded to form the object, and another the environment of the object; or rather that a multitude of sets formed a vast variety of objects, and another multitude of sets formed a vast variety of environments.  When we see matter acting by law, then if there is no Creator, we have the to us unthinkable proposition of law without a lawgiver!

On the other hand, if we shut out some of the difficulties, keep our eye on one part of the case only—­and that is what the human mind is very apt to do—­we can easily come round to think that, after all, elementary matter—­cosmic gas—­is a very simple thing; and looks really as if no great Power, or Intellect, were required to account for its origin.  After all, some will say, if we grant your great, wise, beneficent, designing Creator, the finite human mind has as little idea of a self-existing God, as it has of self-existing matter and self-existing law. You postulate one great mystery, we postulate two smaller ones; and the two together really present less “unthinkableness” to the mind than your one.  That is so far plausible, but it is no more.  To believe in a GOD is to believe in One Existence, who necessarily (by the terms of our conception) has the power both of creating matter, designing the forms it shall take, and originating the tendencies, forces, activities—­or whatever else we please to call them—­which drive matter in the right direction to get the desired result.  To believe not only that matter caused itself, but that the different forces and tendencies, and the aims and ends of development, were self-caused, is surely a much more difficult task.  It is the existence of such a variety, it is the existence of a uniform tendency to produce certain though multitudinous results, that makes the insuperable difficulty of supposing matter always developing (towards certain ends) to be self-caused.

The advocates of “eternal matter” really overcome the difficulty, by shutting their eyes to everything beyond a part of the problem—­the existence of simple matter apart from any laws, properties, or affinities.