The Relation of Science and Religion.pdf - Online Christian Library

INORGANIC ELEMENTS. 93thus without a science of the ultimate natureof matter. There is, indeed, the suggestionof Sir William Thomson that matter of allBinds may be regarded as of a common nature,only variously compounded, filling spacein a fluid state, and that itsl compressibilitycan be accounted for on the supposition thatits ultimate forms are vortex sings capable ofcompression and expansion like an india-rubberball; but this can not be regarded otherwisethan as a bold conjecture, beset with ahost of difficulties both physical and mathematicalwhich neither Thomson nor any ofhis fellow-workers in physical science, professesto have yet grappled with.There are thus before us the chief results 06physical science, as to the nature of MATTER,when we specify that it is indestructible, thatit consists of ultimate molecules or atoms, andthat its compressibility is to be explained bypressure upon such atoms, or cohesion, or comparativecloseness of relation between them,this being greater in solids, less in liquids, andleast in gases.From the structure of matter, we are ledby science to the consideration of ENERGY, asdistinct from matter. These two stand in