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The old order changes, giving place to new,

can best be assisted by the honest and unbiassed expression of the results of individual thought and experience on the part of any one of those units whose aggregates form the complicated organisms of religions and philosophies, of societies and of humanity.

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Matter consists of molecules—Nature of molecules—Laws of their action in gases—Law of Avogadro—Molecules composed of atoms—Proved by composition of water—Combinations of atoms—Elementary substances—Qualities of matter depend on atoms—Dimensions and velocities of molecules and atoms—These are ascertained facts, not theories.

If in building a house that is to stand when the rains fall and the winds blow, it is requisite to go down to the solid rock for a foundation, so much the more is it necessary in building up a theory to begin at the beginning and give it a solid groundwork. Nine-tenths of the fallacies current in the world arise from the haste with which people rush to conclusions on insufficient premises. Take, for instance, any of the political questions of the day, such as the Irish question: how many of those who express confident opinions, and get angry and excited on one side or the other, could answer any of the preliminary questions which are the indispensable conditions of any rational judgment? How many marks would they get for an examination paper which asked what was the population of Ireland; what proportion of that population was agricultural; what proportion of that agricultural population consisted of holders of small tenements; what was the scale of rents compared with that for small holdings in other countries; how much of that rent was levied on them for their own improvements; and other similar questions which lie at the root of the matter? In how many cases would it be found that the whole superstructure of their confident and passionate theories about the Irish difficulty was based on no more solid foundation than their like or dislike of a particular statesman or of a particular party?