a child." Now this which Faraday confessed that he (speaking of himself merely as a scientific investigator) could not know, is just what the writers of the Bible (according to the interpretation of their words which we have assumed to be correct) professed that they did know. They taught (at least I think they taught) that all creative force is the Spirit of a living God.
Mind, I do not assert that these various forces are different manifestations of the same force or Spirit. I only ask you to let me proceed for the present on the assumption that they are so. I myself believe them to be so; I can understand neither the Bible nor the facts of Nature upon any other supposition. But I do not want you to believe it merely because I do. I only want you to understand what it is that I believe, and then as we go on you will see whether you think you have any ground for agreeing with me.
But whether these forces are the same or not it is quite clear that they are practically, to a certain extent, convertible. The galvanic battery, for instance, has the power of causing an unmagnetised iron bar to become magnetic. And though man's power of thus converting one force into another is very limited, it does not follow that they are not, in Nature, interchanged to an infinite extent.
It appears, too, pretty clear that, though we speak as if there existed only a certain limited number of such forces, their number is in reality infinite. Every species of plant and of animal and of crystal has its own. All the higher
