Page:The Harveian oration (electronic resource) - Royal College of Physicians, 1881 (IA b20411911).pdf/18

 is, and how far it may reach, I think we shall all admit that we cannot comprehend the infinite. Infinity is, but we understand it not.

So, too, of eternity. I make bold to say in this place that the man who talks of the eternity of matter knows not of what he speaks. It is a question that human reason cannot grasp, that logic cannot reach. One thing, however, comes out very clearly in the argument, which might almost have been predicated of the dictum when evolved out of the finite human understanding. Every speculation tacitly assumes a beginning for this evolution of matter. Eternity counts no beginning in its history. History, indeed, it knows not; duration is not of it; it is ever the same; a thousand years and the thousandth part of a second are just alike in that calendar; the limits of time and space are unknown; the present, the finite, the tangible, can scarcely be regarded as fragments of that great unfathomable abyss.

When I assert my belief in a Law-giver, it is because thus alone can I account for my own existence; its beginning and ending; and the existence of a world around me. That laws are impressed upon matter, and that it is governed by them, no educated man can deny; that matter framed these laws for itself seems to me to be too gross a hypothesis for anyone to conceive. Let me crave your indulgence if I further attempt to