In short, ether is as incomprehensible as Deity; and if we suppose it to have instituted spontaneously the different kinds of matter, we have really constituted it a god, which is what, in a loose way, some ancient mythologies actually did. We may, however, truly say that this modern scientific conception of the practically infinite and all-pervading ether, the primary seat of force, brings us nearer than ever before to some realization of the Spiritual Creator. But to ether both science and Agnosticism must superadd energy--the entirely immaterial something which moves ether itself. The rather crude scientific notion that certain forces are "modes of motion" perhaps blinds us somewhat to the mystery of energy. Even if we knew no other form of force than heat, which moves masses of matter or atoms, it would be in many respects an inscrutable thing. But as traversing the subtle ether in such forms as radiant heat, light, chemical force, and electricity, energy becomes still more mysterious. Perhaps it is even more so in what seems to be one of its primitive forms--that of gravitation, where it connects distant bodies apparently without any intervening medium. Facts of this kind appear to bring us still nearer to the conception of an all-pervading immaterial creative power. But perhaps what may be termed the determinations of force exhibit this still more clearly, as a very familiar instance may show. Our sun--one of a countless number of similar suns--is to us the great centre of light and heat, sustaining all processes, whether merely physical or vital, on our planet. It was a grand conception of certain old religions to make the sun the emblem of God, though sun-worship was a substitution of the creature for the Creator, and would have been dispelled by modern discovery. But our sun is not merely one of countless suns, some of them of greater magnitude, but it is only a temporary depository of a limited quantity of energy, ever dissipating itself into space, calculable as to its amount and duration, and known to depend for its existence on gravitative force. We may imagine the beginning of such a luminary in the collision of great masses of matter rushing together under the influence of gravitation, and causing by their impact a conflagration capable of enduring for millions of years. Yet our imagining such a rude process for the kindling of the sun will go a very little way in accounting for all the mechanism of the solar system and things therein. Further, it raises new questions as to the original condition of matter. If it was originally in one mass, whence came the incalculable power by which it was rent into innumerable suns and systems? If it was once universally diffused in boundless space, when and how was the force of gravity turned on, and what determined its action in such a way as to construct the existing universe? This is only one of the simplest and baldest possible views of the intricate determinations of force