whole solar system. But though in the course of ages
catastrophes have occurred and may yet occur in the heavens, though
ancient systems may be dissolved and new systems evolved out of their
ruins, the molecules out of which these systems are built--the
foundation stones of the material universe--remain unbroken and
unworn.'

The atomic doctrine, in whole or in part, was entertained by Bacon,
Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Boyle, and their successors, until
the chemical law of multiple proportions enabled Dalton to confer upon
it an entirely new significance. In our day there are secessions from
the theory, but it still stands firm. Loschmidt, Stoney, and Sir
William Thomson have sought to determine the sizes of the atoms, or
rather to fix the limits between which their sizes lie; while the
discourses of Williamson and Maxwell delivered in Bradford in 1873
illustrate the present hold of the doctrine upon the foremost
scientific minds. In fact, it may be doubted whether, wanting this
fundamental conception, a theory of the material universe is capable
of scientific statement.

5.

Ninety years subsequent to Gassendi the doctrine of bodily
instruments, as it may be called, assumed immense importance in the
hands of Bishop Butler, who, in his famous 'Analogy of Religion,'
developed, from his own point of view, and with consummate sagacity, a
similar idea. The Bishop still influences many superior minds; and it
will repay us to dwell for a moment on his views. He draws the
sharpest distinction between our real selves and our bodily
instruments. He does not, as far as I remember, use the word soul,
possibly because the term was so hackneyed in his day, as it had been
for many generations previously. But he speaks of 'living powers,'
'perceiving or percipient powers,' 'moving agents,' 'ourselves,' in
the same sense as we should employ the term soul. He dwells upon the
fact that limbs may be removed, and mortal diseases assail the body,
the mind, almost up to the moment of death, remaining clear. He
refers to sleep and to swoon, where the 'living powers' are suspended
but not destroyed. He considers it quite as easy to conceive of
existence out of our bodies as in them; that we may animate a
succession of bodies, the dissolution of all of them having no more
tendency to dissolve our real selves, or 'deprive us of living
faculties--the faculties of perception and action--than the
dissolution of any foreign m