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On the other hand, the exact equality of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John Herschel has well said, the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent. Thus we have been led, along a strictly scientific path, very near to the point at which Science must stop,—not that Science is debarred from studying the internal mechanism of a molecule which she cannot take to pieces, any more than from investigating an organism which she cannot put together. But in tracing back the history of matter, Science is arrested when she assures herself, on the one hand, that the molecule has been made, and, on the other, that it has not been made by any of the processes we call natural. Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limits of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent it must have been created. (Page 176)
On the other hand, the exact equality of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John Herschel has well said, the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent. Thus we have been led, along a strictly scientific path, very near to the point at which Science must stop,—not that Science is debarred from studying the internal mechanism of a molecule which she cannot take to pieces, any more than from investigating an organism which she cannot put together. But in tracing back the history of matter, Science is arrested when she assures herself, on the one hand, that the molecule has been made, and, on the other, that it has not been made by any of the processes we call natural. Science is incompetent to reason upon the creation of matter itself out of nothing. We have reached the utmost limits of our thinking faculties when we have admitted that because matter cannot be eternal and self-existent it must have been created. (Page 176)
== Creationist? ==
[[Creationism]] currently defines creationism as the "Belief in the literal interpretation of the account of the creation of the universe and of all living things related in the Bible." Assuming a 'creationist' is someone who believes in and/or espouses 'creationism' under this definition, then no, I don't think it's proper (from these quotations) to conclude that Maxwell was a creationist. It does seem likely that he believed in a creator of some sort who created the molecules, but that's a far cry from the "literal interpretation of the account of the creation of the universe and of all living things related in the Bible.". -- [[User:Jtl|Jtl]] 16:02, 9 April 2007 (EDT)