The collocations these elements form are more difficult still to be accounted for without the agency of mind. Figures piled up to the sun are not able to express the possible combinations they are capable of assuming. The possible combinations of even twenty-four letters of the alphabet could not be expressed in literature, filling the world with books. Much greater must be the number of combinations of the original elements—the alphabet of creation. It is to be remembered, too, that they disagree on more of their sides than they agree. They are by no means equally congenial. Friendships and unions between them are formed in accordance with the most exact rule and affinity. Does it not seem, then, that combinations formed by chance would be mutually incompatible, neutralizing, and destructive? Would they not forever ferment in ungoverned chaos? Yet we see them dwelling together in the utmost unity, like seeking like, and in the bonds of law and harmony, uniting in compound, mineral, vegetable, animal, and the body of man himself. Were there as many of the letter _a_, as there are atoms of oxygen; and as many of the letter _b_, as there are atoms of hydrogen; and were the letters of the alphabet to be increased in proportion to their use, until they should equal the atoms of all the elements which enter into the composition of the globe; how long would it take these letters, stirred by some force like the winds, to assume the form of such a poem as Paradise Lost? We cannot believe that all these letters, stirred by an unseen force through infinite ages, would ever form a sensible verse of poetry, or a rational verse of prose. It is as difficult to understand how the letters of the alphabet could ever get into the rhythm of Paradise Lost, without Milton’s mind, as to understand how unconscious elements took the form of mountain, sea, grove, and globe; round, articulate, and law abiding, without a great co-ordinating mind.