The conclusion which our minds are forced to draw from the facts
presented in this chapter is not doubtful, nor is it difficult to state.
Matter is not now being brought into existence by any means that we call
"natural." _And yet the facts of radioactivity very positively forbid
the past eternity of matter_. Hence, the conclusion is syllogistic:
matter must have originated at some time in the past by methods or means
which are equivalent to a real Creation.

Thus far, at least, the record of Genesis is confirmed: "In the
beginning God created."



II

THE ORIGIN OF ENERGY


I

What has been regarded by many as the greatest scientific triumph of
modern times was worked out about the middle of the last century by
James Prescott Joule and others, in determining that a certain amount of
mechanical energy is exactly equivalent to a definite amount of heat.
With this mechanical equivalent of heat all the various other forms of
energy have also been correlated; until now we have the general law of
the Conservation of Energy, which says that energy can be neither
manufactured nor destroyed, but merely transformed and directed. And
this magnificent law, like that of the conservation of matter, is strong