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Divisibility may not be predicable at all, in any intelligible sense, of Things in themselves, nor therefore of Matter in itself; and the assumed necessity of being either infinitely or finitely divisible, may be an inapplicable alternative. On this question I am happy to have the full concurrence of Mr. Herbert Spencer, from whose paper in the Fortnightly Review I extract the following passage.
Bands no longer play the forces into the fight indeed I have seen no more bands afield with the dun-colored files of the Germans than I might count on the fingers of my two hands; and flags, except on rare show-off occasions, do not float above the heads of the columns; and officers dress as nearly as possible like common soldiers; and the courier's work is done with much less glamour but with in-, finitely greater dispatch and certainty by the telephone, and by the aeroplane man, and most of all by the air currents of the wireless equipment.
He gives you indeed the assurance that all is well with Him, and for his eternal way of thinking; but thereupon he leaves you to be finitely saved by your own temporal devices. Far be it from me to deny the majesty of this conception, or its capacity to yield religious comfort to a most respectable class of minds.
For in the first place, Matter, in any other than the phenomenal sense of the term, may not exist: and it will scarcely be said that a nonentity must be either infinitely or finitely divisible.
And since it hath not a natural tendency to annihilation, nor a power to annihilate itself, nor can be annihilated by any being finitely powerful only, without an immediate act of the omnipotent Creator to annihilate it, it must endlessly abide an active perceptive substance, without either fear or hopes of dying through all eternity, which is, in other words, to be immortal as to the agency of all natural or second causes, that is, 'naturally immortal."
Finitely imitating this infinite example, as we advance in the regeneration of our Affections, we shall first give of our external possessions from the love of giving, and from a desire to make ourselves happy by seeing others so. Next, we shall give from the knowledge of truth that is in us, working with such wisdom as we possess, to help others to make themselves happy.
Moreover, far the greater part of physical inquiries now relate to molecular actions, which, a distinguished natural philosopher informs us, "we have to regard as the results of an infinite number of in finitely small material particles, acting on each other at infinitely small distances" a triad of infinities and so physics becomes the most metaphysical of sciences.
Know that there is a depth and delicacy in the sense of justice, which will sometimes send clients from your office, and sometimes tie your tongue at the bar; yet, as you would preserve the majesty of your manhood, strive just for that unprofitable sense of justice, unprofitable only because infinitely, rather than finitely, profitable.
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