The first stone is that matter--substance--cannot be destroyed, cannot
be annihilated.
The second stone is that force cannot be destroyed, cannot be
annihilated.
The third stone is that matter and force cannot exist apart--no matter
without force--no force without matter.
The fourth stone is that that which cannot be destroyed could not have
been created; that the indestructible is the uncreatable.
If these corner-stones are facts, it follows as a necessity that matter
and force are from and to eternity; that they can neither be increased
nor diminished.
It follows that nothing has been or can be created; that there never has
been or can be a creator.
It follows that there could not have been any intelligence, any design
back of matter and force.
There is no intelligence without force. There is no force without
matter. Consequently there could not by any possibility have been any
intelligence, any force, back of matter.
It therefore follows that the supernatural does not and cannot exist. If
these four corner-stones are facts, Nature has no master. If matter and
force are from and to eternity, it follows as a necessity that no God
exists; that no God created or governs the universe; that no God exists
who answers prayer; no God who succors the oppressed; no God who pities
the sufferings of innocence; no God who cares for the slaves with
scarred flesh, the mothers robbed of their babes; no God who rescues
the tortured, and no God that saves a martyr from the flames. In other
words, it proves that man has never received any help from heaven;
that all sacrifices have been in vain, and that all prayers have died
unanswered in the heedless air. I do not pretend to know. I say what I
think.
If matter and force have existed from eternity, it then follows that all
that has been possible has happened, all that is possible is happening,
and all that will be possible will happen.
In the universe there is no chance, no caprice. Every event has parents.
That which has not happened, could not. The present is the necessary
product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.
In the infinite chain there is, and there can be, no broken, no missing
link. The form and motion of every star, the climate of every world,
all forms of vegetable and animal life, all instinct, intelligence
and conscience, all assertions and denials, all vices and virtues, all
thoughts and dreams, all hopes and fears, are necessities. Not one
of the countless things and relations in the universe could have been
different.