{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_70115/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_70115","id":"gutenberg_70115","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70115","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Creation","Evolution","God","Religion and science"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s Notes\n\nObvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. The\npaper's unusually extensive use of commas remains unchanged.\n\nItalics are represented thus _italic_.\n\n\n\n\n                 THE CREATOR, AND WHAT WE MAY KNOW OF\n                        THE METHOD OF CREATION.\n\n\n                             THE CREATOR,\n                      AND WHAT WE MAY KNOW OF THE\n                          METHOD OF CREATION.\n\n                     THE FERNLEY LECTURE OF 1887.\n\n                                  BY\n                    W. H. DALLINGER, LL.D., F.R.S.\n\n                \u2018For I have learned\n  To look on Nature, not as in the hour\n  Of thoughtless youth.... And I have felt\n  A presence that disturbs me with the joy\n  Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime\n  Of something far more deeply interfused,\n  Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,\n  And the round ocean and the living air,\n  And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;\n  A motion and a spirit, that impels\n  All thinking things, all objects of all thought,\n  And rolls through all things.\u2019\n                          WORDSWORTH.\n\n                           Seventh Thousand.\n\n                                LONDON:\n            T. WOOLMER, 2, CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD, E.C.,\n                     AND 66, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.\n                                 1887.\n\n\n\n\n                                  TO\n                        JAMES S. BUDGETT, ESQ.,\n                           IN REMEMBRANCE OF\n                             A FRIENDSHIP\n                   WHICH HAS INFLUENCED BENEFICENTLY\n                      MUCH OF HIS LIFE AND WORK;\n                          THIS LITTLE VOLUME\n                    IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY\n                              THE AUTHOR.\n\n\n\n\n                               PREFACE.\n\n\nThe following discourse was prepared as a lecture. With the exception\nof the insertion of passages which it was found necessary to omit in\ndelivery, on account of too great length, it is printed as it was\nspoken. It addressed, and in its present form addresses, thoughtful and\nearnest minds, not concerned specially with questions of philosophy,\nmetaphysics, and science, but alive to the advanced knowledge and\nthought of our times, and anxious to know, so far as in such a form\nit could be expressed, how the great foundation of religious belief,\nthe existence of Deity, is affected by the splendid advance of our\nknowledge of nature. To have written more than the following pages\ncontain, in answering this desire, would have necessitated what I\nhave earnestly endeavoured to avoid, a change from a discourse into a\ntreatise. It is hoped that, as it is presented, it may to some extent\nbe found useful to those who sought it\u2014not so much students, as men\ninterested in the deeper thought of our age, but whose time is occupied\nwith the labours and engagements of a busy life.\n\n                                                      W. H. DALLINGER.\n\n  WESLEY COLLEGE, SHEFFIELD,\n    _September 1, 1887_.\n\n\n\n\n     THE CREATOR, AND WHAT WE MAY KNOW OF THE METHOD OF CREATION.\n\n\nIn spite of the lucid and far-reaching reasoning of Hume, which aimed\nat effacing causality from our conceptions of phenomena, and making\ninvariable sequence supplant it; in spite of Auguste Comte\u2019s stern\neffort to \u2018get rid of the vain pretension to investigate the causes\nof phenomena,\u2019 and the affirmation that \u2018forces are only movements,\nproduced or tending to produce;\u2019 nay, in spite of all the logical\neffort of all the following years, there remains unaltered, that\ninalienable property of the human mind, consciousness of power;\nthe ability to realize \u2018I can\u2019 simultaneously with \u2018I am.\u2019 In this\noriginates our universal explanation of external phenomena. Because\nwe can act and produce phenomena, we infer that all phenomena were\ninevitably produced by some transcendent but equivalent act of\nconscious power. If we think of a plane surface or a sphere, we can\nonly think of them as occupants of space: so, if we think of the light\nbeams of Sirius, or the motion of Mars, we realize the normal necessity\nof thinking of them ultimately as caused. This is an inevitable\nsequence of our consciousness, reason, and experience. A phenomenon\nappearing in time evokes the mental demand for something which is not\nthat phenomenon, but without which it would not have existed.\n\nIn this lies the insatiable desire of mind to peer into the origin of,\nand reason for, the existence of this universe. Deepening knowledge\nbrings broader light and expanding mystery, but this only quickens the\nintellectual purpose of the race to seek to solve the problem, why\nwe are circled with the splendid phenomena of heaven and earth, and\npossessed of the mystery of ourselves?\n\nBut to meet this mental demand is no part of the business of science.\nThe study of phenomena, their succession and their classification, is\nthe essential work of science. It has no function, and is possessed of\nno instrument with which to look behind or below the sequence, in quest\nof some higher relation. The eye and the mind of the experimentalist\nknow only of antecedent and consequent. These fill the whole circle\nof his research; let him find these, and he has found all. But\nsince a cause is no more a phenomenon, than a thought is a material\nmanifestation, that which fills the whole circumference claimed by\nscience does _not_ fill all the area legitimately held by reason. A\nprevision of the order, and the methods of the changes of the universe,\nis the ideal of science. But mind in its entirety refuses to be locked\nwithin such limits. It looks deeper than sequences, and farther back\nthan phenomena; it demands, by the very laws of its existence, their\ncause. A continuity of transformed causes undoubtedly explains a wide,\nand ever-widening area of sequences. But that cannot annul the demand\nof reason for causation. It simply drives it farther back, and higher\nup, and indicates that the modes of action and relation originated by\nthe primal cause are only the more sublimely rhythmic. Count this a\nlingering survival of \u2018mere metaphysics\u2019 who will, it is withal so\nstalwart, so perennial in our consciousness, amidst all vicissitudes of\nknowledge and reasoning, that whatever science may do, philosophy must\ngive it audience.\n\nThe researches of science, then, are physical. The observable, finite\ncontents of space and time are the subjects of its analysis. Existence,\nnot the cause of existence, succession, not the reason of succession,\nmethod, not the origin of method, are the subjects of physical\nresearch. A primordial cause cannot be the subject of experiment nor\nthe object of demonstration. It must for ever transcend the most\ndelicate physical reaction, the profoundest analysis, and the last link\nin the keenest logic. Absolute knowledge concerning it can only be the\nprerogative of itself.\n\nBut human reason is not only, and wholly, concerned with the brilliant\nrecords of physical enquiry: it is conscious of powers within itself\nthat transcend and elude all the processes of physics, and the analyses\nof mathematics. The activities of the mind are not exhausted, the\ndemands of the mind are not met, the persistent questions of reason\nare not answered, by all the processes, all the products, and all the\npossibilities of physical research combined.\n\nScience refuses absolutely to recognise mind as the primal cause of\nthe sequences of matter. This is just;\u2014within the strict region of its\nresearch; for phenomena, their sequences and classification, are its\nsole domain. But observe, science, universally, puts _force_ where the\nreason asks for cause. The forces affecting matter are tacitly assumed\nto be competent to account for every activity, every sequence, every\nphenomenon, and all the harmonies of universal being. A nexus for the\ninfinite diversities and harmonies, a basis for all the equilibrium of\nnature, is found by modern science in force. But force is as absolutely\ninscrutable as mind. Force can never be known in itself; it is known by\nits manifestations. It is not a phenomenon; it produces phenomena. We\ncannot know it; but we know nothing without it.\n\nThen the ultimate analysis of physical science is the relations of\nforce and matter. But force is a subject of knowledge to science\nonly in its manifestations; that is, motion. In irreducible terms,\ntherefore, the final analysis of science is _matter as affected by\nmotion_. These\u2014matter and motion\u2014are held by many advanced physicists\nto be the primary elements of all phenomena; the most minute, subtile,\nand occult reaction, and the most majestic cosmic manifestation are\nheld to be explained by these. Thus the whole cosmos, with its infinite\ncomplexities and harmonies, arose in space, and is in space, because of\nthe affections of matter by motion. To search out the motions on which\nall changes are based, to reduce all the activities of the universe,\nfrom the awful movement of a constellation, to the rhythmic swing of\nan atom; from the origin of mind, and the writing of Faust, to the\nbuilding of a snow crystal, or the production of a flower, to sheer\nmechanics\u2014matter affected by motion\u2014is held to be the chief mission of\nscience.\n\nBut examine for a moment the nature of the problem. The matter with\nwhich analysis is thus finally concerned cannot be matter as we know\nit. It is the existing _properties_ or _qualities_ of matter that\naffect us. Matter is hard, it is yellow, it is sweet. Now the very\nqualities that _make_ matter as we know it are demonstrated by modern\nscience to be but \u2018modes of motion;\u2019 matter is hot because the ultimate\natoms of it vibrate in a special manner. The yellowness of an object is\nnot in _it_, but in our percipient faculty. That which is yellow emits\ncertain light vibrations only; these affect the retina in a special\nmanner, and this affection we call the perception of yellowness. It is\nthus with all the qualities of matter.\n\nThen what can that \u2018matter\u2019 be with which the physicist must ultimately\nand in the beginning deal? When matter is divested of all its\nqualities, divested in thought of all the \u2018modes of motion\u2019 by which\nit manifests itself to us, what is it? Is it mass, wholly incapable\nof affecting our senses? Matter _sine perceptione_? That cannot be a\nthing, it is an abstraction, and he must be something more than a bold\nman, who would logically infer an actual factor, corresponding to the\nabstract conception.\n\nManifestly, then, physical science and its methods cannot illuminate\nand explain all the dilating area of space, and flow of time, with\nwhich our consciousness and reason are concerned. Shapes and motion,\nform and number, are not data that can carry us to the origin of the\nuniverse. You must import an unacknowledged factor. Force stands\nready: if you endow _it_, in imagination equipped in the uniform of\nscience, with the very qualities of mind, no doubt you may cross\nthe boundary of experimental science, and see in matter affected by\nmotion the possibility of all that is. But, says Professor Huxley,\n\u2018_Kraft und Stoff_\u2014force and matter\u2014are paraded as the Alpha and\nOmega of existence. This, I apprehend, is the fundamental article of\nthe faith materialistic, and whosoever does not hold it is condemned\nby the more zealous of the persuasion (as I have some reason to know)\nto the Inferno appointed for fools and hypocrites. But all this,\u2019 he\ncontinues, \u2018I heartily disbelieve; and ... I will briefly give my\nreasons for persisting in my infidelity. In the first place, ... it\nseems to me pretty plain that there is a third thing in the universe,\nto wit, consciousness, which, in the hardness of my heart or head, I\ncannot see to be matter, or force, or any conceivable modification\nof either, however intimately the manifestations of the phenomena of\nconsciousness may be connected with the phenomena known as matter\nand force. In the second place, the arguments used by Descartes and\nBerkeley to show that our certain knowledge does not extend beyond our\nstates of consciousness, appear to me to be as irrefragable now as\nthey did when I first became acquainted with them, some half-century\nago. All the materialistic writers I know of, who have tried to bite\nthat file, have simply broken their teeth. But if this is true, our\none certainty is the existence of the mental world; and that of\n_Kraft und Stoff_ falls into the rank of, at best, a highly probable\nhypothesis.\u2019[1]\n\n [Footnote 1: _Fortnightly Review_, No. ccxl., new series, December\n 1886, p. 794.]\n\nLook, then, at the striking incongruity. With no explanation of matter\nwithout qualities; with no indication of how motion could arise and\nbecome rhythmic and infinitely harmonious; with the distinct knowledge\nthat, when the physicist wants to demonstrate matter, he is compelled\nto do it in terms of motion; and, when he would prove the presence of\nmotion, he can only do it in terms of matter; with all these fetters\nto our mental movement, and clouds before our eyes, it is argued that,\nby carrying the discoverable and apparently self-acting affections\nof matter by motion far enough back, we can explain the origin and\nstructure of the universe.\n\nI would repeat, that in such a mental effort, it is vain to seek\nlogical aid from the employment of the word \u2018force.\u2019 We have seen that\nthe only scientific idea of force we can ever have, is motion. Motion\nis the result of ever-varying relations, borne to each other by matter,\nspace, and time. At a given instant a body is here; in a measurable\ninterval after, it is not here, but yonder. \u2018Motion\u2019 carries with it no\noccult constructive power. It is change of place, and no more.\n\nIs it not inevitable, then, that the mind should refuse its sanction\nto the claim, that \u2018the problem of the universe\u2019 is solved by these\nfeeble factors? \u2018If I were forced,\u2019 writes Professor Huxley, \u2018to choose\nbetween Materialism and Idealism, I should elect for the latter;\u2019[2]\nand truly, if our choice must be between them, this is the normal\nalternative.\n\n [Footnote 2: _Fortnightly Review_, December 1886, p. 796.]\n\nThe loftiest object of human thought is to discover how far the\nmaterial universe is en expression of supreme unity, of rhythmic\nactivity, and of rational order. But for this, the mind must take a\nrange that transcends, without limit, all physical sequences, laws,\nphenomena. Taking the broad basis of our consciousness and reasoning\nfaculties, we must _relate_ sequences, _interpret_ phenomena, and,\nhowever remotely and imperfectly, endeavour to account for \u2018laws.\u2019 But\nin doing this we must remember that we have pushed our way beyond\nthe last outpost of _physical_ research. We have passed beyond the\nregion where \u2018quod erat demonstrandum\u2019 is used. We have threaded our\nmental path into solitudes where no electrometer will be responsive, no\nspectroscope analytical, no lens revealing. We have come to the edge\nof all that we _know_ and can _demonstrate_; and then, impelled by the\nmoral and rational light within us, we judge and balance all that we\nknow, and all that we are, and we reach, not a demonstration, for that\ncannot be, but a conviction, a moral and intellectual certainty, of\nthe being of a primordial cause, which is second, in its firmness and\nsecurity, to nothing within the area of mind.\n\nSince the time of Newton and Leibnitz the laws of ordinary dynamics\nhave been settled; but between dynamics, and the so-called\n\u2018imponderable forces,\u2019 by which it was assumed that an explanation was\nfurnished of heat, chemical action, electricity, magnetism and the\nrest, there was a great gulf. That has been bridged over by a common\nmeasure of value, giving rise to a general dynamic law of all the\nforces of the universe. This is known as the \u2018Conservation of Energy.\u2019\nIt demonstrates, with more or less completeness, that all physical\nphenomena are the different appearances resulting from different\ngroupings of matter by force. Both matter and force are eternally\nchangeless in quantity. They can be neither diminished nor increased,\nneither created nor destroyed. The \u2018modes of motion\u2019 that produce the\nvaried phenomena are interchangeable. Light may become heat, heat\nmay become electricity; but there is no loss. When motion seems to\ndisappear, it is only transferred into another mode. The phenomena\nof light, heat, electricity, result from changes wrought in matter\nby motion. Every ray of sunshine, for instance, is an interwoven\ngroup of powerful energies. Whence do they come? From changes in the\nmatter of the sun. For every measure of sunshine received by the\nearth an equivalent measure of solar matter has been changed. Through\nthe sunbeam the varied forms of energy produced in the sun have been\nreceived, and stored up on this earth. For incalculable centuries\nthe world has been clothed with abundant vegetation. This will only\ngrow in sunlight. The energies in the sunbeam act on living matter,\nas on a spore or a seed, causing it to grow. That is to say, under\nthe influence of vital action, the forces of the sunbeam are changed\ninto wood. A section from a pine mast, or an oak trunk, stands for\na measurable quantity of sunshine. But coal is wood; forests buried\nand carbonized. Coal then has, as it were, fixed the energies of the\nsunbeams that poured upon the earth millions of years ago. Put coal\nwhere it will be in contact with oxygen and heat, and what follows?\nYou get heat, light, chemical action; that is to say, the locked-up\nenergies of the sunbeams of a measureless past are set free.\n\nHere then, all the activity of the universe, every phenomenon, and\nevery vibration of every atom, from the centre to the margin of the\nimmeasurable whole, is directly related to a unity of primal power.\nNothing has happened to-day in the remotest or nearest part of\ncreation, but was linked in an unbroken chain to the first throb that\nthrilled the incipient universe in the mystery of \u2018the beginning.\u2019\nNothing is isolated through all duration and all space. Because,\neverywhere and always, the resulting phenomena are self-acting and\nrhythmic to our mode of research, shall we say that they have no cause,\nor that they have determined their own condition? because we find that\nthe self-adjustments and sublimity of Nature, transcend infinitely all\nthe conceptions of earlier generations, will it be logical to argue,\nthat therefore Nature may be the more readily explained as causeless\nand devoid of mind? that, being self-adjusting and self-acting, it\nneeded no cause? or shall we not the rather realize that this unbroken\nline of physical continuity and interaction through all duration to\n\u2018the beginning\u2019 brings us _there_, face to face, with the inscrutable\nPower, by which that unchanging unity and continuity of purposeful\naction was caused?\n\nEvery phenomenon is motion; motion can only begin in force. Within the\nrange of human experience and thought, as it has been long without\nanswer contended, there is no force known but _will_: could any other\ncause than the volition of a mind, have primarily directed force to\naffect matter so as to produce, for ever, the infinite harmonies and\nself-adjusting interactions of this vast Universe?\n\nThe very intellect, which finds so noble a vocation in the researches\nof science, and which is so brilliantly employed in penetrating into,\nand opening up, the _intelligibility_ of the physical universe; and\nby that means demonstrating the _congruousness_ of the cosmos; is the\nsame intellect that is conscious of _itself_, and of its _power_;\nwhich knows itself as possessed of causative capacity; and which\nhas absolutely no other source of knowledge concerning power, save\nthat which arises in itself. The very rationality of the Creation,\nin our deepest analysis and broadest survey of it, leads the mind,\nby the conditions inseverable from its reasoning faculties, to see\nin its perfect relations the inevitable congruity of an intelligent\ncause. And all this, be it observed, results _after_ science has\ndisclosed the splendid treasures of its knowledge, the beauty and\nindisputable accuracy of its methods, and the new senses with which\nit has endowed itself by its instruments. Yes; the mind goes out to\nthis conclusion, not defiant of science, but gratefully paying toll to\nit for an infinitely enlightening and ennobling passage through the\nmarvels of phenomena, and the splendour of Nature\u2019s methods, right\nto the very margin, beyond which science herself declares she cannot\ngo; and although the physicist may declare he does not need it, and\nthe mathematician that he can dispense with it, although all their\nimmediate problems can be worked without it, yet the mind goes forth\non the wings of its rational powers, its moral consciousness, its\njudgment; and leaving the margin of matter, it seeks audience, as it\nwere, with the very mystery that enshrouds the universe; and it rises\nto the conviction that its quest has not been vain; it has realized,\ndimly, imperfectly, and, as it were, faint with awe, the necessity of\nthe presence and action of Eternal Mind.\n\nNo search into the relations of matter and motion can ever affect our\nconsciousness of causality. We cannot be conscious of our own being\nwithout being simultaneously conscious that whatever begins to be, must\nhave a cause, a reason, for its being. The very validity of our mental\nacts is imperilled, if the congruity of the principle of causality\nbe doubted. Permit an illustration: a minute and beautiful crystal\nof unknown nature is before us. By a mental necessity we know\u2014we\ncannot free ourselves from the conviction\u2014that this crystal occupied a\nmeasurable time to become a crystal, and that being such, it occupies\na measurable portion of space. May we rely on this fundamental act of\nmind? Is it truth? If not, there is not a mental act that ever was,\nor ever can be, veritable. But if it be true, then, since for man to\nproduce a physical effect involves (1) the consciousness of _power_ to\ndo it, and (2) the volitional exercise of that power; and since the\nhuman mind is absolutely without a trace of knowledge of any other\nway in which power can be exercised, in earth or heaven; is not the\ninsistence of reason that there must be a cause for cosmic phenomena, a\nmental act of the _same order_ as that which insists on time and space\nas inseverable factors in the origin and existence of a crystal?\n\nCausality in its mere mechanical relations may be considered for\nconvenience, and translated as, \u2018mechanical law:\u2019 contemplated in its\nrelation to a living organism, we may render it by such an expression\nas a \u2018law of life\u2019. But carry causality to its spring, trace it back to\nconsciousness and thought, and it admits of no disguise; it is power,\nit is volition; there is no halting in its phrase; it is, \u2018I can,\u2019 \u2018I\nwill.\u2019\n\nHerbert Spencer himself affirms, \u2018The force by which we ourselves\nproduce changes, and which serves to symbolize the causes of changes in\ngeneral, is the final disclosure of analysis.\u2019[3] \u2018I can,\u2019 \u2018I am able,\u2019\nis a knowledge that emerges within us simultaneously with \u2018I am.\u2019 It\ninvolves a consciousness of power, which is the essence of causality.\nWe possess it, in precisely the same way as we possess ourselves, or\nour thoughts. Our knowledge of power is not even derived from effort\nor resistance. We know as clearly what we mean by \u2018I am able,\u2019 as we\ndo when we affirm \u2018I am here.\u2019 Being able, and _knowing_ we are able,\nare absolutely different. A telephone is mechanically able to transmit\nvocal sounds and language. But how different to man, who is not only\nable, but knows that he is able. This knowledge of our power to act is\nthe immutable foundation of our belief in causation.\n\n [Footnote 3: _First Principles_, \u00a750, pp. 169, 170.]\n\nWe may make two separate affirmations: as, for example, that \u2018the\nthermometer is 6\u00b0 F. below zero,\u2019 and that \u2018water has become solid;\u2019\nor, again, we may state, \u2018my fingers rest upon the key-board of an\norgan,\u2019 and \u2018now they move, and a symphony of Beethoven\u2019s is floating\nin the air.\u2019 These are \u2018sequences;\u2019 but is that enough? No. Instantly\nthe mental act that _interprets_ them is supplied. In both cases, our\nconsciousness and reason are compelled to demand the exercise of power,\nby means of which one event succeeds the other. We are absolutely\nand irresistibly certain, in the latter case, that it must be so. A\ndirect act of volition changed the fingers from rest into rhythmic\nmotion, causing the organ to pour out music; and, by an intellectual\nnecessity, we see that a diminished temperature, and frozen water, are\nnot sequences merely; they must be related: and this conviction is\nnot changed, though, by means of research, we find their sequential\nrelation to be the result of the continuity of prior effects; we still\nretain the unaltered judgment, that, if we go back far enough, we must\nbe in the presence of a cause. The mind cannot dispense with the link\nof power uniting sequences.\n\nThen, if by long trains of sequential effects and secondary causes we\nare led up, not by demonstration, but by irresistible moral conviction,\nto a Primordial Power, a source of all, what is such creative cause?\nIs it inevitably God? Is the universe, as we know it, infinite? Who\ndare say? Though we know that the vast looming firmament, in which\nthe \u2018milky way\u2019 stretches its depths and winds its awful amplitudes,\nis beyond all finite power to follow; yet, it may be but a complex\nparticle in a universe of universes, stretching on, and for ever on,\nover the bourneless immensity of the unknown.\n\nIf that be so, we can make no useful inference from our finite\nuniverse. We could infer only a finite creator from a finite cosmos.\nTo be finite is to be infinitely less than infinite; and such a\nbeing could not be the ineffable majesty of mind and might, which we\napprehend, but cannot comprehend, as the Creator.\n\nIf such a limited power could be conceived, because it is finite, it\nof necessity began to be; and therefore its very existence was of\nnecessity caused. We seek _its_ cause, as we do that of all other\nsecondary causes; until at last we reach the only position in which\nthere is mental rest, an infinite cause of all causes, the primordial\nand ultimate reality of all being.\n\nConcerning even it, the question has arisen, Must not it also have been\ncaused? Is not this question a paradox? It is of finite being only that\nwe can affirm the necessity for causation. What is finite begins to be;\nwhat begins to be, must have been caused to be. But if our moral and\nreasoning faculties bring us at last, face to face, with an inscrutable\nand infinite primal cause, is there a mental process exercised by\nus that demands that such a being must have had a cause? Experiment\ncannot suggest it, for this is neither finite, nor a phenomenon; and\ncan neither be observed nor analyzed; research in it is infinitely\nimpossible; and of experience there can be none. Science is without\nfunction in presence of a primal cause. It is powerless, by virtue of\nits knowledge or its methods, to affirm or to deny an infinite and\neternal self-existence. And yet such is not only possible to thought,\nbut has congruity with all the faculties of reason. The principle of\ncausality involves merely that every _finite_ existence must have had a\ncause for its being; that what is born and dies, what arises and ceases\nto be, what began in time and flows on in continuous mutation, had an\noriginator. But our consciousness of causality does not and cannot\ninclude or apply to an infinite and unsearchable cause of all. We may\nnot with our finite plummet seek to measure the depths of the Infinite,\nnor with our limited grasp hope to enfold the All. To say nothing of\nits cause, what do we _know_ of even the universe itself? We write and\ntalk freely of millions of miles, and in a moment reverse the process\nand write or speak of millionths of a grain or of an inch; we think of\ntens of thousandths of a second, of millions of years, and duration\nthat is without beginning and without end. Imagination cannot picture\nthese things, though thought can possess them. They involve the two\ngreat mysteries ever present to mind, space and time.\n\nSpace includes within itself all that can be the subject of our\nknowledge, yet it is not a phenomenon, not an entity, not an object of\nsensation. It is a pure abstraction. No space is not thinkable. By no\neffort of mind can we think of space as non-existent at any period in\ninfinite duration. So far as we can see, without objects with their\ndimensional relations, space could not be a concept. The contents of\nspace, out of which the mind abstracts space, are the source from\nwhence our concept, space, emerges. An infinite void is mentally\nnothing; an intellect like man\u2019s, that had never realized extension in\nthe dimensions of material bodies, could not present it in thought, any\nmore than it can conceive correctly the qualities of a fourth dimension.\n\nIn like manner time is not a thing, an entity, to be accounted for as a\ncreation, a thing caused; it is a consequence of existences; duration\nmeasured by sequences. If there were no succession of events, there\nwould be no time. Space and time are mental abstractions, respectively,\nof the relations of dimensions and duration.\n\nBut with what mystery and majesty, with what proportions and powers,\nwith what mass and movement is space full! and of what sequences and\nphenomena has time been the unconscious recorder! It is into these\nthat the mind of man intently peers; it is across the bourneless area\nof uncharted space that he would carry his mental vision; it is into\nall the vicissitudes that have arisen, since the succession of cosmic\nphenomena marked off a section of duration, that the mind of man is\never struggling to thread its way; and if possible, to find the meaning\nand origin of it all.\n\nThat which is the most impressive outcome of all modern physical\ninvestigation, is the apparent mechanical automatism of all cosmic\nsequences and phenomena within our reach. As a result, the most\npowerful philosophies are directed to an endeavour to establish a\nmechanical\u2014that is, a mindless or purposeless\u2014_origin_ of the universe.\nBut granted a universe, fully understood, exhaustively known, purely\nmechanical in all its _present_ activities; even this, surely, only\nmakes more absolute the certainty that the very conditions of its\npresent existence, involved at its beginning, a more majestic design\nthan all the thinkers of the past had ever dreamed.\n\nThere is no alternative; either chance, or mental purpose, gave primal\norigin to all that is. Nothing within the reach of intellect could\nexpress the infinite improbability of the first suggestion. That _one_\nvast harmony, one _perfect_ method, should fall out by chance, through\nthe operation of uncounted millenniums of ages, is almost inexpressibly\nimprobable; but that a system of harmonies, practically infinite in\nnumber and measureless in extent, should all be locked together in\none vast uniting harmony, making all creation a chorus, to which all\nits parts from the centre to the margin contribute their flowing and\nconcerted strains, without a discord to the unity of thought; to\nsay that _that_ arose by chance, sprang from fortuity, fell out by\naccident, is surely to trifle with the fundamental principles of our\nmoral faculties and reasoning powers.\n\nHence, nothing but philosophical ruin can be the end of materialism\nwhen enunciated in its grosser form. But our age is distinguished by\nthe existence of a brilliant philosophical materialism, which has\narrested, and is swaying, the deepest thought of our age, by the\nopulence of its learning and resource, by the scientific accuracy and\ninsight of its abounding and perfect illustrations, and by the subtile,\nbut stately method and breadth of its generalizations; but beyond all,\nby the fact that its world-famed author, Mr. Herbert Spencer, repels,\nwith warmth, persistence, and manifest integrity, the very suspicion of\n\u2018materialism\u2019!\n\nYet we are compelled to ask, of what value, of what real service,\nare all the ideal and spiritual assumptions of his splendid and\nfascinating philosophy? It acknowledges a _something_ beyond the\nmatter and the mechanism that fills the amplitudes of space; it even\ndesignates this something a \u2018power,\u2019 But that power is declared, for\never and infinitely, beyond the circumference of knowledge: it is the\n\u2018absolute,\u2019 the \u2018unknowable;\u2019 it can take no part, and become no agent\nin, no factor of, any philosophy of the origin of the universe which we\nconstruct. On the very terms of the philosophy itself, all in heaven\nand earth, through all the past and all the future, can be accounted\nfor and explained without it. If the admission into its phraseology\nof the existence of a \u2018power,\u2019 which is a name only, be taken as\nsufficient reason, then this philosophy is not materialistic. But if it\nbe remembered that this \u2018power\u2019 is absolutely without function in this\nphilosophy of the construction of the universe,\u2014if it be true to its\nformula,\u2014and that only matter and motion are asked for, its ultimate\nmaterialism is a certainty, and, from its very subtilty, a peril.\n\nTo philosophical Theism the coarser Materialism can bring no lasting\ndanger. It ignores too much, and assumes too much; and treats with a\ntoo manifest disdain the fundamental basis of our reasoning faculties.\n\nIt has many brilliant exponents; but foremost amongst them is Haeckel\nof Jena, a man of large scientific attainments, a biologist of the\nhighest repute, and possessed of the keenest acumen. But these are not\nthe only, nor the essential factors, of a philosophic mind.\n\nHe has no hesitancy, no scruple. A Creator for him is a conception\nfor scorn, and he pours unceasing contempt upon the thought that he\nor any of us are more than material organisms, alive for our little\nday and then dead for ever. There is a future only for the race. The\nuniverse is declared to be without purpose; it is moving matter, which,\nby self-operation through immeasurable duration, has issued in laws\nthat exist without reason, and devoid of an originator, act, with the\ndeafness of the rock and the unconsciousness of the sea; producing\nin the realm of life the weaker and the stronger, but only for that\nunceasing war in which the stronger win.\n\nThat for man there is nothing nobler, nothing higher, than to study\nthe grinding laws which compel him; which laws are the summaries of\nnatural methods which began in nothing, and have been for ever vacant\nof thought or purpose.\n\nWe need have no anxiety concerning the influence of such a scheme; from\nits own incoherence it enfolds its intellectual death-warrant in its\nvery form.\n\nBut the philosophy of Spencer is of another order. It is a philosophy\nthat scorns the idealism of Berkeley, and that with the fervour of\nconviction, indignantly repudiates \u2018Materialism.\u2019 He contends for\nthe equal and independent reality of self and not-self, of subject\nand object, of mind and matter. He affirms that the \u2018co-existence of\nsubject and object is a deliverance of consciousness.... and is a\ntruth transcending all others in certainty.\u2019[4] Yet, in the progress\nof the philosophy, we discover that from matter in motion, and nothing\nelse, the whole universe is supposed to arise; life emerges; and mind,\nin its most transcendent forms comes forth. And it is this fallacy\npervading the philosophy that is the essence of its power. Repudiating\n\u2018Materialism\u2019 as philosophically untenable, it yet exists as a\nphilosophy to endeavour to show that mind is an outcome of matter.\n\n [Footnote 4: _Principles of Psychology_, vol. i. p. 209.]\n\nLook at the problem it sets for solution. \u2018Philosophy,\u2019 says Spencer,\n\u2018is _completely unified_ knowledge;\u2019 and adds, \u2018... a philosophy stands\nself-convicted of inadequacy, if it does not formulate the whole\nseries of changes passed through by every existence.... If it begins\nits explanations with existences that already have concrete forms ...\nthen manifestly they had preceding histories ... of which no account\nis given. And as such preceding ... histories are subjects of possible\nknowledge, a philosophy which says nothing about them falls short of\nthe required unification.\u2019[5]\n\nThen, on the very terms of the philosophy, we are to contemplate\n\u2018the beginning\u2019 with absolutely nothing anterior or unaccounted for.\nThere must be no \u2018concrete forms,\u2019 no \u2018preceding histories,\u2019 to be\nencountered.\n\nNow observe, it is clearly recognised in this philosophy that the\nultimate nature of all that constitutes the universe is infinitely\nbeyond the reach of the human mind; that in their final nature time,\nspace, matter, motion, rest, the transfer of motion, the exercise of\nforce, the nature and operation of consciousness and thought, are all\nequally, that is, infinitely, inscrutable. Knowledge is inexorably\nlimited to, and co-extensive with, phenomena; yet from these phenomena\nalone we are to obtain exhaustive accounts of their own origin and\nexistence, in spite of the admitted inscrutable mysteries of which they\nare the manifestations.\n\n [Footnote 5: _First Principles_, pp. 541-42.]\n\nIf we can obtain so complete a knowledge of matter and motion, by a\nscientific study of them, as will enable us, with that knowledge alone,\nto explain their origin and account for the sequences they involve,\nthen there is no more mystery. There are no \u2018ultimates\u2019 to explain.\nOur knowledge covers all that is, in space and time. The \u2018Absolute\u2019\nitself is a meaningless superfluity, and the mysterious \u2018power\u2019 that is\nphilosophically invoked can have no true place, for all is explicable\nwithout it.\n\nA beginning is inevitable to a philosophy of material evolution. Then\n\u2018in the beginning\u2019 what? How in the zero, in which there were no\n\u2018concrete forms\u2019 and no \u2018preceding histories,\u2019 did the first movement\ntowards the plenished arch of heaven and the fruitful earth arise?\nConcentration and diffusion, it is affirmed, are universally observed\nphysical processes. The latest science in tracing back the genealogies\nof various objects finds that \u2018their components were once in diffused\nstates, and, pursuing their histories forwards, finds diffused states\nwill be again assumed by them.\u2019[6] Clearly, then, \u2018matter\u2019 is assumed\nto exist at the \u2018beginning.\u2019 It certainly _may_ have had a \u2018preceding\nhistory;\u2019 and to ignore this is to come, at the outset, perilously near\nto a philosophy \u2018that stands self-convicted of inadequacy.\u2019\n\n [Footnote 6: _First Principles_, p. 280.]\n\nA diffused state of matter is, it thus appears, the earliest point of\nthe beginning that physical evolution can descry. This is the nebular\nhypothesis of Laplace; without doubt a majestic theory, but a theory\nstill. Science has welcomed it to work with; and it explains, or aids\nin the interpretation of, much; but, that it should be taken so for\ngranted as to be considered a demonstrated or even undisputed and\nestablished fact of modern science, we may be permitted to doubt; and\nit must have had a \u2018preceding history.\u2019 It takes us to a point in\nmeasureless past duration, where all that is now concrete matter is\nassumed to have been in a gaseous state. It is not even contended that\nit is an original condition. Such an almost infinite mass of nebulous\nmatter must have been due, if existent, to heat, and to heat of an\nintensity that defies our range of conception.\n\nBut whence did such heat come? \u2018Heat\u2019 is demonstrated to us now as\na rhythmic \u2018mode of motion;\u2019 one of the phenomena of nature to be\naccounted for. Verily, heat is a phenomenon with a \u2018preceding history,\u2019\nand yet at the outset its presence is assumed in the cosmic cloud.\n\nBut, further complexity still, how does heat act in this primordial\nnebula? If heat is a \u2018mode of motion,\u2019 by what were the heat vibrations\nwrought? You must have _then_, for the phenomenon of heat, what is\nindispensable to the physical theory of it now:\u2014the inconceivable but\nindispensable ether of modern physics. But how came the ether in, and\nbeyond, the cosmic cloud? It is an \u2018existence,\u2019 manifestly; more, it\nis \u2018matter;\u2019 but matter that transcends the range of the action of\ngravity; it is without weight, and differentiated from all matter that\nwe know in a manner that thought cannot follow.\n\nHow did this \u2018existence\u2019 pass from the imperceptible to the\nperceptible? and by its own requirement should not a complete\nphilosophy furnish its past history?\n\nLet us come more closely into contact with the actual formula of this\nphilosophy. \u2018Evolution,\u2019 says Spencer, \u2018is an integration of matter\nand concomitant dissipation of motion, during which the matter passes\nfrom an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent\nheterogeneity, and during which the retained motion undergoes a\nparallel transformation.\u2019[7]\n\nHere, then, are the factors of the potential universe. By definition\nthey are the sole structural essentials. Beyond them nothing should\nbe asked, required, or assumed. What are these irreducible factors of\nthe formula? \u2018Matter\u2019 and \u2018motion.\u2019 But we have clearly seen that we\nare cognizant of matter as such only by its \u2018modes of motion\u2019. It is\n_these_ for which evolution has to account. \u2018Matter\u2019 denuded of the\nqualities by which we now are cognizant of it, can be no other than\ndimensions without qualities, spatial presence undiscoverable by sense.\n\nOn the other hand, pure motion, motion by itself, is impossible to\nthought. Motion is only known as an affection of matter. \u2018It becomes\nmanifest,\u2019 says Spencer, \u2018that our experience of _force_ is that out\nof which our idea of matter is built\u2019.[8] But, in the terms of the\nformula, force can be nothing but matter affected by motion. What,\nthen, was this primary matter on which motion first acted, and before\nmotion had by various \u2018modes\u2019 produced in it a single quality? No\nanswer is possible; but, nevertheless, as the philosophy unfolds itself\nwe find that \u2018we need not refrain ... from dealing with matter as made\nup of extended and resistant atoms,\u2019[9] and henceforth we are led to\nconsider the cosmic nebula as not only homogeneous, but as being, in\nits homogeneity, atomic.\n\n [Footnote 7: _First Principles_, p. 396.]\n\n [Footnote 8: _First Principles_, p. 167.]\n\n [Footnote 9: _First Principles_, p. 176.]\n\nNo lover of physical and chemical science can do other than profoundly\nadmire the atomic theory of modern physics. But there is no sound\nphysicist or chemist but is sufficiently alive to its difficulties\nto know that in every form in which it has been presented, it is, to\nsay no more, tentative and hypothetic. In Mr. Spencer\u2019s philosophy it\nbecomes a fundamental fact of the beginning. But the existence of atoms\nbeing granted, how did they arise? \u2018If you ask the materialist,\u2019 says\nProfessor Tyndall, \u2018whence is this matter ... who or what divided it\ninto molecules ... he has no answer.\u2019[10] So that here, in spite of the\nclaim made, no philosophy can be \u2018complete;\u2019 and even the doctrine of\nan eternally automatic evolution is philosophically inadequate.\n\nBut these atoms of the primordial haze are \u2018resistant;\u2019 such a quality\ncan only result from a special affection of matter by motion; whence\ncame or how arose such an affection of matter? Its existence in the\natoms of the nebula inevitably implies \u2018preceding history,\u2019 but it is\nnot given; and this pregnant atomic haze is, so far as we can see,\nwithout colour, without chemical affinity or reaction, without light,\nelectricity, or magnetism, and devoid of all cohesion.\n\nClearly, these are not the atoms of the chemical elements known to us.\nThey are not the atoms of Dalton nor of Clark Maxwell. The atoms of the\ncosmic mist are, by the very terms of the formula, naked of quality;\nand, by the limiting conditions of the definition of the cloud as\nhomogeneous, are, throughout all the abysms of space, alike in size, in\nshape, and in motions. Equal extensions of space moving at equal rates.\n\n [Footnote 10: _Fragments of Science_, vol. ii. p. 396.]\n\nBy these conditions, then, it is manifest that primordial matter is\nin itself infinitely powerless and inert. Motion can affect it; but\ncan there be motion of any _new_ kind originated without a power to\ncause it? If that can be, the fundamental acts of human reason are\nuntrustworthy; and man is incapable of knowledge or deduction, which\nis absurd. Then what was the power that determined new motions in the\nprimordial homogeneous matter?\n\nIt could not by any demand in the formula be even gravity, if that were\ncompetent. Modern thought and knowledge cannot allow gravitation to\nbe a property of matter. Ether is matter, but it does not gravitate.\nGravity is therefore an occult affection of matter by motion, that has\na history \u2018to be accounted for.\u2019\n\nIn this almost infinite primal nebula, a certain class of motion is\nassumed. How it originated is unexplained. But what is the atomic\nmotion of this primal homogeneous matter? From the terms given it\nmust be as I have said. Motion of absolute likeness throughout all\nthe profounds of space it filled; equalized motion in every atom;\nno difference of rate; no difference of mode. The motion of one\natom is identic with the motion of all. It could never be lost; it\ncould never increase; it could never alter. It is homogeneous, and\n_therefore_ changeless\u2014balanced for ever\u2014in itself. Says Mr. Spencer:\n\u2018Any finite mass of diffused matter, even though vast enough to form\nour whole sidereal system,\u2019 if it were of \u2018absolute sphericity,\nabsolute uniformity of composition, and absolute symmetry of relation\nto all forces external to it,\u2019[11] would be homogeneous and eternally\nincapable of change.\n\n [Footnote 11: _First Principles_, p. 407.]\n\nAnd that \u2018homogeneity\u2019 is the very condition laid down for the\nbeginning, from which mechanical evolution is to educe the universe.\nIn the Spencerian formula there is no qualification of the term\nhomogeneous. It postulates \u2018an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity,\u2019\nthat is, an indefinite cloud, with balanced motion in all its atoms\nwhich neither attracts nor repels, and is in itself infinitely\nincapable of change.\n\nNow, shall we not ask _how_ the first pulse, that caused the\nstupendously vast homogeneity to throb into the heterogeneous, arose?\nwhence did it come? Infinite incapacity could not, unless reason\nbe mendacious, render _itself_ capable. Then how came that _first_\nmovement that, it is argued, ended in revolving systems, a bountiful\nearth, the throat of the nightingale, and the tragedy of Macbeth!\n\nThere is no answer. This philosophy, to get the first progressive\nmovement in its balanced nebula, bids its formula stand aside, that\nit may advance. At a critical moment it changes the very meaning of\nthe homogeneous. \u2018The condition of homogeneity is a condition of\nunstable equilibrium!\u2019[12] \u2018The phrase ... is one used in mechanics to\nexpress a balance of forces of such kind that the interference of any\nfurther force, however minute, will destroy the arrangement previously\nsubsisting, and bring about a totally different arrangement.\u2019[13]\n\n [Footnote 12: _First Principles_, p. 401.]\n\n [Footnote 13: _Ibid._ p. 401-402.]\n\nNote, then, the homogeneous cosmic cloud is, by the terms given, in\nequilibrium. But some \u2018further force,\u2019 some small influence _outside_\nitself, acts upon it, and it breaks up.\n\nBut what is the _outside_ influence? What is this \u2018further force,\u2019\nand from whence? We have a cloud composed of atoms in balanced\nmotion\u2014nothing more. Outside influence, \u2018further force,\u2019 is an\nintrusion. It has no right there. It has not on the wedding garment of\nthe formula.\n\nSurely an outside influence must be caused? If it involved no more\nenergy than is wielded by a may-fly\u2019s wing, how came it there? It is\nas easy to admit the _self-origination_ of a divinity of power, as the\n_self-creation_ of power to lift a grain. It is not in the philosophy;\n\u2018outside influence\u2019 has no credentials, and the admission of inability\nto evolve the universe without it, is an admission that the mechanical\nphilosophy fails at the outset. Nor can it serve the emergency to\ninvoke \u2018force.\u2019\n\nA Divine origin of the universe is usually rejected, because the\nDivinity eludes the methods of science. But we cannot supplant the\nDeity by enthroning force. Science can tell us what force _does_, but\nit can no more find what force _is_, than what an infinite mind is.\nForce is an irresistible mental inference from matter in motion, but\nits ultimate nature is defiantly beyond the reach of science.\n\nIt appears, then, that to obtain even the \u2018elements\u2019 of our modern\nchemistry, the philosophy of mechanical evolution must, at the\nbeginning, call in uncovenanted aid. Let us remember this, while for\nthe purposes of argument we allow it. There may have been secured,\nadded, and perhaps altered, motion by the surreptitious \u2018outside\ninfluence;\u2019 but it can be nothing more. The atoms are still without\nproperty, and are only affected by motion. Have we any _experience_\nto induce us to believe that atoms without property, even affected\nby thermal vibrations and pushed by gravity, will build themselves\nup into the seventy \u2018elements\u2019 of chemistry with their specific and\ninalienable qualities? That, through vibrations of heat and pushings\nof gravity, they could become hydrogen and mercury, carbon and gold,\nchlorine and phosphorus! And these properties being thus acquired, by\ntheir sheer interactions that all the chemistry, the physics, and the\n_order_ of all the area of space within the galaxy arose? This is what\nthe formula of the most brilliant philosophy of any age would lead us\nto infer.\n\nIn this relation I do not forget the recent and splendid service done\nby Mr. Crooks to the philosophical side of chemistry in the record of\nhis researches on \u2018The Genesis of the Elements.\u2019 It is a most subtile\nand exquisite means of endeavouring to deduce the _method_, the \u2018_law_\u2019\naccording to which what we know as the \u2018chemical elements\u2019 were built\nup. He obtains indications of a primitive element\u2014a something out of\nwhich the elements were evolved. He calls it _protyle_ or first stuff,\nand from its presence he concludes that the elements, as we know them,\n\u2018are not simple and primordial, that they have not arisen by chance,\nor been created in a desultory and mechanical manner, but have been\nevolved from simpler matter\u2014or perhaps indeed from one sole kind of\nmatter.\u2019[14]\n\n [Footnote 14: Reprint of a Lecture at the Royal Institution by Mr.\n Crooks, p. 2.]\n\nBut this reduction of matter, as we know it, to a simpler but still\nhighly differentiated condition, only causes reason the more earnestly\nto demand how the rhythmic and complex method, which we express by the\nword \u2018law,\u2019 came into operation, and was established for ever.\n\nThe \u2018protyle\u2019 is infinitely more complex than the atoms of the\nhomogeneous nebula. It makes no philosophical difference whether the\nultimate atoms of the bodies known as elementary are all alike, or in\neach instance special. In either case there is infinitely more in the\nmatter they severally make, than can be deduced from motion affecting\nthe primitive atoms.\n\nBut not only have we by the formula and constructive method of this\nphilosophy to obtain protyle from the mere effects of motion on\nprimitive atoms; but, by the same means alone, we have to change\nprotyle into the seventy \u2018elements;\u2019 above all, without an added factor\nor a change in the method, we have to rise to life!\n\nLet us reflect. By life in this relation is meant that which lives, an\norganism endowed with life\u2019s properties. Are these properties unique?\nOr is there some point of fluxion where the properties of life at their\nminima arise in the activities of not-life at some undiscovered maxima?\nA point at which some occult molecular complexities arise, changing\nmatter dead into matter living?\n\nThe answer must come, not through our abstract logic, but from our\nlaboratories.\n\nLife, it is well known, has its phenomena inherent in, and strictly\nconfined to, a highly complex compound, with fixed chemical\nconstituents. This compound, in its living state, is known as\nprotoplasm. It is clear, colourless, and, to our finest optical\nresources, devoid of discoverable structure. There is not a living\nthing on earth but possesses its life in protoplasm, from a microscopic\nfungus to man.\n\nTo depict the properties of life in irreducible simplicity, take one\nof the lowliest instances within the present range of science. Let\nit be one of the exquisitely minute, almost infinitely prolific,\nand universally diffused living forms that set up and carry on\nputrefaction. The lesser of them may, when considered as solid specks,\nvary from the fifty thousand millionth of a cubic inch to the twenty\nbillionth of a cubic inch. I select one that is oval in shape. It moves\nwith the agility of the grayling and the grace of a swallow, the motion\nresulting from the rhythmic action of two motile fibres.\n\nThis free and self-originating action is its first vital quality.\n\nIts mission as an organism, is to break up and set free the chemical\nelements that had been locked up in dead organic compounds. Its own\nsubstance wears out by this and other means; and it has the power to\nrenovate the waste from the dead decomposition in which it lives;\nconstructing, in the laboratory of its protoplasm, new living matter.\n\nThis is the second characteristic of that alone which lives. By\nit, living matter is _sui generis_. Every instant, and at the same\ntemperature, this inconceivably minute speck, without discoverable\nstructure, effects analyses and complicated syntheses which either\nbaffle all the synthetic chemistry of man, or else, where he is able to\naccomplish the simplest of the organic syntheses, it is by processes\nand at temperatures that make all life impossible.\n\nBut more, this vital and inconceivably minute speck multiplies with\nastounding rapidity in two ways; by the first and common process, in\nthe course of a minute and a half the entire body is divided into two\nprecisely similar bodies, each one being perfect; almost immediately\nthese again divide, and so on in geometric ratio through all the\npopulated fluid; the rapidity of this intense and wonderful vital\naction transcending all thought. By this process alone a single form\nmay in three hours give rise to a population of organisms as great as\nthe human population of the globe.\n\nBut this is not all; at certain stages of the organism self-division\nceases. The final divisions result in strikingly modified forms of the\norganism; these approach each other and melt together. They are then\nshining globules without action, but at the end of a given time they\nopen, and pour out a continuous cloud of minutest spore or ova, which\nare as countless as the sands; and from these arise again another host\nof the organisms, which pass again through all the mystery and marvel\nof this vital cycle.\n\nAnd this is the third of the qualities that make what lives absolutely\nunique amidst the things of earth.\n\nThis is life\u2014whether vegetable or animal none can determine\u2014in the\nsimplest form in which it can be known; life that is possessed only of\nthe irreducible properties which are inalienable, and which distinguish\nit for ever and everywhere from what is not-life.\n\nIt is true that the philosopher, by the common consent of mind,\noccupies the throne of intellect; but it is not, for all that, to\nthe esoteric philosopher, not to the deep mental seer, who girdles\nall space, all duration, all phenomena with his thought, that nature\nreveals her latest, her subtlest, her profoundest secrets. It is to\nthe patient student\u2014nature\u2019s loving learner, whose eye and ear are\ntrained to read her faintest writing and catch her lowest whisper\u2014that\nher deepest truths in all their strength and immediate bearing are\ndisclosed. Yet the fates of philosophies are determined by these.\n\nThen what is the testimony of students and searchers as to the mode in\nwhich life takes its origin to-day? Does life originate _in_ life? or\ndo we find that in our laboratories, and in the observed processes of\nnature _now_, the not-living can be, without the intervention of living\nthings, changed into that which lives?\n\nBiology, as a science, answers \u2018no.\u2019 Says the greatest master of\nall the facts, Professor Huxley: \u2018The properties of living matter\ndistinguish it absolutely from all other kinds of things, and,\u2019 he\ncontinues, \u2018the present state of our knowledge furnishes us with no\nlink between the living and the not-living.\u2019[15]\n\nThen what lives is, in its qualities, utterly unlike\u2014sharply marked off\nfrom\u2014what is not living. Yet the elements that make up the living stuff\nare the most common on the earth. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen:\nwe know them each and all; we know their properties and reactions on\neach other, and on all the minor elements of the living matter; but\nthat knowledge only complicates the nature of the problem. The mystery\nof life is, not that any occult elements compose the matter in which\nit dwells; the mystery of life consists solely in the question, _how_\nthe elements that make up protoplasm can be so combined, as, by their\ncombination, to acquire the splendid and solitary properties of that\nwhich lives.\n\nManifestly, then, there was a time in the past history of the globe,\nwhen its matter was without life, and therefore there must have been a\ntime, perhaps at a point of intense activity in the not-living matter\nof the globe, when it became endowed with the properties of life.\n\n [Footnote 15: _Ency. Brit._ art. \u2018Biology,\u2019 vol. iii. p. 679.]\n\nBy what agency that transcendent upward movement was wrought, science\nclaims no vocation to inquire. But let the earth, and air, and sea,\nwith all their teeming denizens, attest,\u2014that power was competent.\n\nNow let us ask, can we as rational beings account for all the\nproperties of living things in terms of matter and motion? Will\nvibrating atoms, with millenniums of ages to work in, but no power to\ndirect them, explain the wonder? Was the transmutation of not-living\nmatter into living brought about merely by what we can reduce to solid\ngeometry and transcendental numbers? atoms, which we can approximately\nmeasure, dancing to the rhythm of complex motion?\n\nAll that mechanical evolution has to work with, is atoms and motions.\nPile the atoms into complexities too large for clear thought, cluster\nmolecule round molecule, and let them beat in multitudinous harmonies\ndefiant of conception, yet all you have is matter in motion. It is not\nlife with its sentiency; it is not life with its self-chosen movement;\nit is not life with its power to construct its own substance out of\nmatter that is dead, and to multiply its kind _ad libitum_.\n\nAnd yet Mr. Spencer begins by taking what no mental manipulation of\nthe naked formula of his philosophy could provide, the \u2018elements\u2019 of\nour present chemistry; and by imagining higher and higher complexities\nof atomic structure a complicated molecule is reached; and then, by a\nchange in name, which is justified by no change in the facts, he calls\nthe complex substance organic matter; and by simply continuing this\nprocess, thinks he sees it become living.[16]\n\n [Footnote 16: _Principles of Biology_, vol. i. p. 481.]\n\nThe justification of all this is the affirmation \u2018that organic matter\nwas not produced all at once,\u2019 and that there is in the laboratory\nof the chemist \u2018what we may literally call artificial evolution.\u2019\nMr. Spencer instances a laboratory product of what is counted a\nsufficiently typical organic compound.[17] But to obtain it the chemist\nhas to employ no less than twenty distinct chemical and physical\nprocesses, involving many varying temperatures, from a red heat to the\nintensity of the electric arc, and between thirty and forty reagents\nand their products, are employed in the process. Compare this with the\nsilent and impenetrable simplicity of the chemistry of life, and vivid\nand striking is the contrast. And yet when this product of the chemist\nlies before you, produced by the tremendous relative labours of the\nlaboratory, it is as far off from dead white of egg, to say nothing\nof living protoplasm, as the qualities of a flint pebble are from the\nqualities of the diamond.\n\n [Footnote 17: The Butyrate of dimethylamin.]\n\nThe _facts_ of nature\u2014surely our safest guide\u2014declare that the\ntransition from not-life to life is abrupt. The break is absolute and\nclear. A \u2018complex molecule\u2019 is a molecule of atoms in motion,\u2014nothing\nmore. More atoms and more motion cannot, by themselves, as Mr. Spencer\nwould teach, make it \u2018organic;\u2019 much less can any further addition of\natoms and tremors make it live. It is in vain for Haeckel to call the\nsimplest moneron that lives \u2018primeval slime,\u2019 or to call numbers of\nthem \u2018individualized lumps of albumen.\u2019 It is a travesty. Under the\nsame lens place \u2018a lump of albumen\u2019 and the lowest _living_ infusorian,\nand a voiceless contradiction of Haeckel\u2019s phrase which none can ever\nquestion is indubitably given. The infusorian lives; the albumen is\ndead. The infusorian constructs the vital matter of its own body from\nthe heterogeneous matter in which it lives; the albumen decomposes\nas it lies there. The infusorian has soon multiplied by millions,\nwhile the albumen disappears by decadence. To write of living monera\nas \u2018albumen,\u2019 or of \u2018complex molecules\u2019 with nothing more than their\ncomplexity, as _living_, is to contradict, in the name, the essential\nand distinguishing qualities of both.\n\nThis impropriety may be yet more manifest by another quotation from\nHaeckel. His aim is to endeavour by the use of vague language to\nreduce the impassable gulf between the living and the not-living,\nand he writes of the animal _ovum_, as \u2018a little lump of albumen in\nwhich another albuminous body is enclosed\u2014the nucleus.\u2019 What profound\ntrifling is this! Think of, say a human ovum, an invisible particle\nless than the hundredth of an inch in diameter; it _lives_; and there\nlies coiled up in the mystery of its minuteness all the potentiality\nof the highest manhood; all the possible power of Socrates, or Homer,\nor Goethe. Is that simply \u2018a lump of albumen\u2019? Not unless a man can\nbe justly described as such, by the bottles of chemical substances to\nwhich his body can be reduced.\n\nEven Mr. Spencer pleads that \u2018the lowest living things are not,\nproperly speaking, organisms at all, for they have no distinctions of\nparts, no traces of organization.\u2019 If it were true that our lenses\ncannot reveal organization in the lowliest and smallest organisms, does\nit follow that there _is_ none? Will Mr. Spencer risk the validity of\nthe doctrine of material atoms on the ability of our lenses to show the\natom? Surely not.\n\nBut the affirmation is not supported by facts. The splendid increase of\nmicroscopical lens power during the past decade has not only enabled\nus to see that there is complexity and structure in both the animal\nand vegetable cell, which bisects by an elaborate process; but even\nthe minute nucleus of the minutest organisms, often not more than one\ntenth part of the infinitesimal body itself, is now proved to undergo\nprofound structural changes, which precede all the great cyclic changes\nof the organism as a whole. The nucleus is the centre, in fact, of all\nthe higher activities of the least and lowest infusoria; and is the\ncentre of most delicate but clearly demonstrable structural changes.[18]\n\n [Footnote 18: _Jour. Roy. Micro. Soc._, President\u2019s Address, 1886.]\n\nWe cannot reduce the mystery of life by treating contemptuously its\nultimate cells. They are as defiant of interpretation by our present\nmethods as the more complex structures they compose. The mystery of\nlife, _per se_, is as great and as deep, in a monad and a mildew, as\nin a man. Every attempt to argue away the meaning of vital function\nand property, on the basis of the organic simplicity of unicellular\norganisms, is wholly fallacious. It is knowledge, not speculation,\nwhich affirms that the least and lowest, as well as the largest and\nmost complex of living forms, are distinguished absolutely from all\nother kinds of things. There is \u2018no link\u2019 between matter living\nand matter without life. To attempt to build up \u2018life\u2019 by slow\nincrements of added complexity, in atomic or molecular structure, is a\nphilosophical ingenuity; but it expresses no natural truth within the\nhorizon of our knowledge. A higher number of primal, or even chemical\natoms, arranged in the most complex ratios, and affected by the most\nrhythmic movements, are not the data from which to deduce a living\norganism. And to affirm of the lowest living things that \u2018they are not,\nproperly speaking, organisms at all,\u2019[19] because the instruments used\nat a given date did not reveal structure, is, at best, an _argumentum\na silentio_; while simultaneously it contradicts the facts of biology,\nand assumes the whole point at issue.\n\n [Footnote 19: _Principles of Biology_, vol. i. p. 482.]\n\nOn the other hand, there is not a single fact within the present range\nof our knowledge that indicates, or even suggests, that the quarternary\ncompounds approximate, under any known conditions, to the state of\nmatter living.\n\nAs the sheets of this Lecture are passing through the press, Sir\nHenry Roscoe, as President of the British Association, has delivered\na brilliant and essentially scientific address. On the subject of\nchemistry none can speak with a voice more authoritative: and on this\nvery question he writes as follows: \u2018But now the question may well be\nput\u2014Is any limit set to this synthetic power of the chemist? Although\nthe danger of dogmatizing as to the progress of science has already\nbeen shown in too many instances, yet one cannot help feeling that the\nbarrier which exists between the organized and unorganized worlds is\none which the chemist sees no chance of breaking down. It is true that\nthere are those who profess to foresee that the day will arrive, when\nthe chemist, by a succession of constructive efforts, may pass beyond\nalbumen, and gather the elements of lifeless matter into a living\nstructure. Whatever may be said regarding this from other standpoints,\nthe chemist can only say that at present no such problem lies within\nhis province. Protoplasm, with which the simplest manifestations of\nlife are associated, is not a compound, but a structure built up of\ncompounds. The chemist may successfully synthesize any of its component\nmolecules, but he has no more reason to look forward to the synthetic\nproduction of the structure than to imagine that the synthesis of\ngallic acid leads to the artificial production of gall-nuts.\u2019[20]\n\nTo assume, then, that by starting with atoms in equilibriated motions,\nuncounted millenniums of ages ago, and that by adding atoms and groups\nof atoms, with altered and re-altered motions as the ages roll away,\nwith the result that at last, with these factors and no others, we\nshall get organism and life, is, surely, as fallacious as to explain\nMillais\u2019s picture of the Huguenots as having been brought about by a\nskilful arrangement of palettes and brushes, easels and pigments.\n\nNow let it be clearly recalled that Charles Darwin involved himself\nin none of this philosophic ambiguity. To him life was more than a\ncomplexity of elementary atoms affected by motion. It was something he\ncould not \u2018explain.\u2019 He postulated, therefore, the unexplained presence\nof \u2018primordial living germs,\u2019 endowed with the properties, which,\nexperience teaches, are possessed by living matter to-day.\n\nHow, in the great past, mineral and gaseous matters on this earth were,\nas a question of scientific method, so affected as to become living\nmatter is, to our present resources at least, impenetrable.\n\n [Footnote 20: The _Times_ report of the address of Sir H. E. Roscoe\n before the British Association at Manchester.\u2014_Times_, September 1,\n 1887.]\n\n    \u2018Flower in the crannied wall,\n      I pluck you out of the crannies;\n    I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,\n    Little flower.\u2014But _if_ I could understand\n    What you are, root and all, and all in all,\n      I should know what God and man is.\u2019\n\nI merely contend that whatever were the means by which dead matter\nfirst lived, they were higher, infinitely higher, than matter and\nmotion; they could only have been the resources of a _competent_ power.\n\nI adopt gladly the language of Professor Huxley: \u2018Belief, in the\nscientific sense of the word,\u2019 he says, \u2018is a serious matter, and\nneeds strong foundations. To say, therefore, in the admitted absence\nof evidence, that I have any belief as to the mode in which existing\nforms of life have originated, would be using words in a wrong sense.\nBut expectation is permissible where belief is not; and if it were\ngiven me to look beyond the abyss of geologically recorded time to the\nstill more remote period when the earth was passing through physical\nand chemical conditions, which it can no more see again than a man can\nrecall his infancy, I should expect to be a witness of the evolution of\nliving protoplasm from not-living matter.\u2019[21] So should I.\n\n [Footnote 21: _Critiques and Addresses_, p. 239.]\n\nBy what other means than by the operation of natural \u2018laws\u2019 can we\nthink of the Infinite Power, extending through all extent, as the\nfountain of all being, as acting? Every process of nature that ever\nman has investigated throughout all space and all time, results from a\nperfect and unalterable method which we call a \u2018law\u2019 of nature. Then\nwhy should the primal process, by which not-living matter became,\nonce for all, living, be brought about by any other means than the\npredetermined action of competent natural laws? Because life\u2014living\nmatter\u2014does not _now_ arise directly from that which is not-life,\ndoes it follow that the creative method was discontinuous? that the\nprimordial creative laws willed into operation \u2018in the beginning\u2019 were\nonly competent to evolve the inorganic and not-living? and that at this\npoint a supernatural \u2018interference,\u2019 a \u2018miraculous interposition,\u2019 had\nto be effected to endow what was dead with the transcendent properties\nof life? The whole line of human experience, interpreted in the light\nof modern scientific knowledge, compels the conclusion that the\n\u2018primordial germs\u2019 in which life on earth began, arose by the operation\nof natural creative laws. That an energy, not now operating within the\narea of our experience, was at work, when not-living matter progressed\ninto living structure, is certain. But there is nothing, within the\nrange of our knowledge, that permits the inference that it was brought\nabout by any other means, than such as, if we could have seen them in\noperation, we should have called \u2018laws\u2019 of nature. This view surely\nennobles without limit our fatally humanized view of creative action.\n\u2018The beginning\u2019 was thus, by the unsearchable mystery of a creative\nmind and will, the _potentiality_ of all the universe through all its\nduration; which it only required \u2018time\u2019 in which the potential powers\nand modes should operate, to make actual, in the universe we see.\n\nAs the highest mental powers and products of the most gifted of our\nrace, were originally potential in the primitive ovum from which each\ntook his origin, so, it is congruous, and capable of being grasped by\nour thought although it cannot be portrayed by our imagination, that\nthe mind and will of the inscrutable Creator prevised and preordered\nthe whole series of conditions which, by their immutable action,\ninteraction, and rhythmic concurrence as \u2018laws,\u2019 evolved the universe.\n\nSo far as the finest and keenest researches in chemistry and physics\ncarry us, especially such researches as those of Crooks and Lockyer, it\nis powerfully indicated that the creative method in the inorganic world\nwas a sublime progressive plan, a building up by law, of the dome of\nheaven and the floor of earth, and all that goes with both. But behind\nthe matter and the motion, above the energies and the force, there\nsurely was, as we have been constrained to see, what we can only think\nof as the conception, the purpose, and the will by which the evolving\norder, marked in high, and higher sublimity, the upward and onward\nmovement of the ripening and uncounted ages.\n\nBut when the highest point of the inorganic, the not-living, was\nreached, and a new factor had to appear in the world to crown some of\nits matter with _life_ and all its wonders, what was it that ensued? If\n\u2018law\u2019 did not cease to act; if there were no break in the continuity\nof evolution, and yet a factor of power, not now operating within\nthe range of our knowledge, was absolutely necessary to change the\nnot-living matter of the earth into matter that lived, how was it\nbrought about?\n\nOur inability to reply, does not invalidate the facts on the one\nhand, nor justify attempts at explanations that find no sanction in\nexperience and knowledge on the other.\n\nSuggestion by analogy, feeble as it is, is the nearest approach that\nwe can make to the solution of what must, perhaps, remain for ever a\nsplendid mystery.\n\nIf creation be, then, the expression of the mind and will of a Creator,\nuttered in method and issuing in phenomena, he must see the end from\nthe beginning: his resource is infinite. The human mathematician,\nof the highest order, can devise, with all the adaptations and\nprearrangements that are needed, an instrument or machine, which shall\ncontinue for a number of motions, without necessary limit, according to\na primal law, but which by such prevised and preordered arrangements\nwould, suddenly, at the required point of time, undergo change, and\noperate henceforth after a law entirely new.\n\nAn instrument has actually been made which was competent to effect the\nsolution of quadratic equations whose roots are real. One has also\nbeen made capable of effecting the determination of the real roots of\nany equation. It is perfectly conceivable that an instrument could be\nmade which should go on finding the real roots only, for a measured\ntime, and then by a prearranged and provided method should suddenly, by\nthe very laws and principles of its construction, so change, that for\nanother period, or for evermore, it should also determine the imaginary\nroots.\n\nIs it not conceivable that infinite resource, infinite wisdom, infinite\nprevision and power could in a manner which this illustration only\nsuggests have caused the non-vital universe to become in some parts\nvital? Could not infinite power, infinite wisdom, the originator of\nall that we call material phenomena, have prevised and preordered, in\nthe impenetrable mystery of \u2018the beginning,\u2019 that the creative laws of\nevolution for an inorganic world, should, as they brought about the\ncompletion of their perfect purpose, have carried with them from that\n\u2018beginning\u2019 preordered potentialities, that should, by the primal\nvolition of the Creator, emerge, as an inevitable and orderly sequence,\ninto the operation of higher activities and new laws?\n\nIf that may not be, it is not a divine being that is in our thought.\nBut if that may be, then the self-acting laws of nature are\nself-acting, as the products of eternal mind and will. Each self-acting\nphenomenon is, to us, an embodied thought of God; emerging in matter\nnow, as a consequence of the sublimity and perfection of the methods\ndivinely willed \u2018in the beginning.\u2019\n\nLet this illustration weigh for what it will; this at least is clear,\nthat the mechanical philosophy, whether or not it refuses to be called\n\u2018material,\u2019 has proved its formula incompetent. Atomic matter without\nproperty, affected by motion, with persistent relations between the\nmatter and the motion, can no more account for the universe even up to\nthe point of the origin of the lowest life, than the vibrations of a\nmusical chord can account for the joy begotten of music.\n\nBut how stands the problem of its origin, when, in that which lives,\nwe include the presence of mind? None more firmly contends for the\nabsolute disparity, the entire and unqualified difference between mind\nand matter, than Mr. Spencer. To him there can be nothing within the\nwhole realm of thought severed by a wider interval than consciousness\nand thought on the one hand, and matter on the other. \u2018Just,\u2019 he says,\n\u2018in the same way that the object is the unknown permanent _nexus_\nwhich is never itself a phenomenon, but is that which holds phenomena\ntogether, so is the subject the unknown permanent _nexus_ which is\nnever itself a state of consciousness, but which holds all states of\nconsciousness together.\u2019[22] Mind and matter, then, are here admitted\nto be infinitely unlike, but absolutely equal realities. This is\nboldly reaffirmed; he says: \u2018No effort of imagination enables us to\nthink of a shock, however minute, except as undergone by an entity.\nWe are compelled, therefore, to postulate a substance of mind that is\naffected, before we can think of its affections.\u2019[23]\n\n [Footnote 22: _Principles of Psychology_, vol. ii. p. 484.]\n\n [Footnote 23: _Ibid._ vol. i. p. 627.]\n\nThis is as clear as a geometric definition. Mind and matter are\nadmitted to be the two opposite termini of thought; they are divided by\nan interval beyond which thought cannot go. They are symbolized as _x_\nand _y_, two equally unknown, but absolutely unlike, quantities. Beyond\nthe common fact of existence, there is not a quality of the one that is\nnot infinitely unlike all the qualities of the other.\n\nWhat this disparity is we all know: enough, that matter is inert,\nabsolutely without perceiving power, and unable in itself to move or\nto produce motion. But mind is conscious, knows that it exists; and,\nhowever mysteriously, originates motion. Matter has mass; mind is\nabsolutely without it. Matter cannot be thought of save as an occupant\nof space. Mind has no extension.\n\nIs it conceivable, then, that we should be required by this philosophy,\nwhich thus admits the utter disparity of mind and matter, to make mind\na function of matter? that we should be asked to mentally follow a\nprocess by which _y_ shall be changed into _x_? This verily is so!\n\nI must repeat the formula of this philosophy of evolution. \u2018Evolution\nis an integration of matter, and concomitant dissipation of motion,\nduring which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent\nhomogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, and during which the\nretained motion undergoes a parallel transformation.\u2019\n\nMatter and motion, these are the all; no suggestion of aught besides.\nThen, if on that formula the philosophy is built, the rhythmic\nvicissitudes through which matter has passed during limitless\nmillenniums of time, are supposed to be able to change matter\u2019s\nunconsciousness into self-perception and thought; to cause extended\nand gravitating mass to pass into an unextended realization of its own\nbeing, unyoked to gravity; to emerge from space relations involving\nmotion produced by outside forces, to an absolute independence of space\nrelations which makes motion impossible. If we make our _knowledge_\nof phenomena and the processes and methods of Nature the basis of our\njudgment, is it not manifest, that such a change is incapable of being\nthought?\n\nThe unknown _y_, that is, matter, must, by sheer physical vicissitudes,\nactually abnegate its own qualities, and emerge, no longer _itself_,\n_y_, but another entity, infinitely unlike itself, that is, _x_!\n\nIf mind and matter are divergent from each other by infinite unlikeness\nof quality, the mind refuses assent, that any process, based on the\nfoundation of accurate human knowledge, would sanction the emergence\nof mind by physical processes from matter. Mind is the antithesis, and\ncannot be a function, of matter.\n\nThe mind is intimately linked with cerebral action. We do not know mind\napart from brain; but there is no discovered correlation between the\n_work_ of the brain, and consciousness. Dr. Tyndall, whose keen and\ninstructed intellect has addressed itself to this deep problem from\nthe position of a physicist, says, amongst many similar utterances:\n\u2018But when we endeavour to pass ... from the phenomena of physics to\nthose of thought, we meet a problem which transcends any conceivable\nexpansion of the powers which we now possess. We may think over the\nsubject again and again, but it eludes all intellectual presentation.\nWe stand at length face to face with the incomprehensible. The\nterritory of physics is wide, but it has its limits, from which we look\nwith vacant gaze into the region beyond, ... and thus it will ever\nloom, compelling the philosophies of successive ages to confess that\u2014\n\n                  \u201cWe are such stuff\n    As dreams are made of, and our life\n    Is rounded by a sleep.\u201d\u2019[24]\n\n [Footnote 24: _Fragments of Science_, vol. ii. pp. 393, 394.]\n\nThe same thinker asks, \u2018What is the causal connexion ... between\nmolecular motions and states of consciousness?\u2019 And he answers that\nneither he nor any other can know; and adds: \u2018It is no explanation\nto say that the objective and subjective are two sides of one and\nthe same phenomenon. Why should the phenomenon have two sides? This\nis the very core of the difficulty. There are plenty of molecular\nmotions which do not exhibit this two-sidedness. Does water think or\nfeel when it runs into frost ferns upon a window pane? If not, why\nshould the molecular motion of the brain be yoked to this mysterious\ncompanion\u2014consciousness?\u2019[25]\n\n [Footnote 25: _Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 410.]\n\nSays Professor Tait, one of our most distinguished physicists: \u2018There\nare ... things associated with living beings which, of course, no one\nin his senses can regard as physical. Even such things as consciousness\nand volition we have absolutely no reason, however vague, for\nclassifying even in the smallest degree under the head of physics.\u2019[26]\n\n [Footnote 26: _Recent Advances in Physical Science_, p. 70.]\n\n\u2018I,\u2019 writes Professor Huxley, \u2018know nothing whatever, and never hope\nto know anything, of the steps by which the passage from molecular\nmovement to states of consciousness is effected.\u2019[27] And again, \u2018All\nour knowledge is a knowledge of states of consciousness. \u201cMatter\u201d and\n\u201cforce\u201d are, so far as we can know, mere names for certain forms of\nconsciousness.\u2018[28]\n\n [Footnote 27: _Contemporary Review_, Nov. 1871: \u2018Mr. Darwin and his\n Critics.\u2019]\n\n [Footnote 28: _Lay Sermons_, p. 373.]\n\nSuch disparity is there, then, between matter and mind, that it would\nbe apparently as congruous to conceive of a thought as solidifying\nitself into a material object, as to conceive of any affection of\nmaterial molecules as being the sole cause of thought. Hence, it\nfollows that the Spencerian philosophy, which affirms the absolute\ndistinctness of mind from matter, on the one hand; but, having no other\nstructural elements _than_ matter in motion, on the other hand, seeks\nto educe mind from these, is surely incongruous, and fails.\n\nThe demand is, that the primal atoms of the cosmic cloud, without\na single logically added agent besides, have, by combining and\nrecombining, by changing size and shape and intensifying the complexity\nof their motions, at last emerged into \u2018I am,\u2019 \u2018I can,\u2019 \u2018I ought;\u2019 that\nin effect they have written Faust and Hamlet, produced philosophies,\ndiscovered gravitation, calculated eclipses, realized the eternal\nnobility of right and the eternal baseness of wrong: in brief, have\nbrought about the moral and intellectual manhood that is ours. What we\n_know_ by scientific evidence is this: that the persistence of force\nmakes the relations of matter and force permanent. Says Faraday: \u2018A\nparticle of oxygen is ever a particle of oxygen, nothing can in the\nleast wear it. If it enters into combination and reappears as oxygen\u2014if\nit pass through a thousand combinations, animal, vegetable, mineral\u2014if\nit lie hid for a thousand years and then be evolved\u2014it is oxygen with\nits first qualities, neither more nor less. It has all its original\nforce, and only that.\u2019[29]\n\n [Footnote 29: _Philosophical Mag._, iv. 13, p. 235.]\n\nThen, in all the area of the universe as we know it, that is, within\nthe range of our experience and experiment, infinite vicissitude leaves\nwhat we know as an elementary body, with its first qualities intact,\nneither more nor less. But we must transcend experience, disregard the\nevidence before us, and _believe_ that if we give the primal atoms with\ntheir inalienable motion _time enough_, they will emerge at last, not\nonly as life, but as intellect!\n\nCan it avail to repudiate materialism, and yet to philosophically\nconjure mind out of matter? We must indeed recast our definition of\nmatter to do this; but how? Says Professor Max M\u00fcller: \u2018Mill declares\nin one place (_Logic_ v. 3, 3) that it is a mere fallacy to say that\nmatter cannot think. Here again he ought to define first of all what\nhe means by matter, and according to his definition it may or may not\nbe a fallacy to say that matter cannot think. If we say that matter\ncannot think, we do not say so because we cannot conceive thought to be\nannexed to any arrangement of material particles ... the reason why\nwe are justified in saying \u201cmatter cannot think\u201d is our having in our\nlanguage and thought separated matter from thought, our having called\nand conceived what is without thought matter, and what is without\nmatter thought. Having done this, we are as certain that our matter\ncannot think as that A=A and not =B.\u2018[30]\n\n [Footnote 30: _The Science of Thought_, p. 616.]\n\nThe verdict of consciousness is the immovable base of all mental\naction. Our consciousness affirms our personality and insists on our\nidentity. The Ego is conscious of itself as the hidden thread of unity\non which are strung all the past and present states of consciousness\nand thought. Separate \u2018states of consciousness\u2019 as affections of matter\nwe have seen are impossible. But even if they could exist, _to_ whom\nis their existence? A pang of unutterable remorse, a thrill of keenest\npleasure, do not feel themselves. I feel them; what is that I, to whom\nthe feeling is? It is always there, and in the language of Spencer\nalready quoted \u2018is the unknown permanent _nexus_ which is never itself\na state of consciousness, but which holds all states of consciousness\ntogether.\u2019 Then it is as real and more absolute than the \u2018states of\nconsciousness\u2019 themselves.\n\nThe personal pronouns are as plentiful in the language of modern\nmaterialists as in the language of sentiment or theology. What do they\nrepresent?\n\nLooking back and looking forward, thinking of \u2018what might have been\u2019\nand anticipating what will be; and being absolutely conscious that\nit is \u2018I\u2019 in unchanged and unchanging identity that am looking back\nupon myself, and looking forward to myself, is unthinkable, unless\n_something_ to which all successive states of consciousness have been,\nare, and shall be, is admitted. If I deny the separate existence of the\nEgo, I to all intents and purposes deny that I am, and yet it is I that\nam there, perjuring myself by the denial.\n\nNot only is there consciousness and thought, memory and prevision,\npower and volition; but the person, the identity that is conscious and\nthinks, that remembers and anticipates, that is able and that wills, is\nan inextinguishable factor of being. And for this there is no provision\nin the formula of the Spencerian Philosophy.\n\nTrue, as we have seen, it is fain to admit, outside its formula, the\nexistence of a permanent somewhat lying beneath and outlasting all the\nflow of mental states; that it has always existed, that it must exist\nfor evermore; that it is a \u2018power\u2019 sometimes identified with \u2018force;\u2019\nbut it is contended that this is infinitely and for ever unknowable.\nWith this we cannot be concerned; in practice it is an abstraction\nequal to nothing. But it is no element of our analysis; it is no\nfactor of the formula which contained the only data required by this\nphilosophy to construct the universe. We cannot assume that this power\nwas the cause of matter, or the cause of motion; for we are shown that\nwe can know nothing concerning it. But this also is of no moment; for\nmatter, motion, and the combinations they bring about, over countless\nmillenniums of time, clearly understood, and fully interpreted, are\nsupposed to contain in themselves, the explanation of all that is. But\nsurely the promise of this philosophy is unfulfilled, its pledge is\nbroken; it left its formula at the very outset of its career, and has\nemployed structural principles, which to _it_ are absolutely alien.\n\nThen to affirm that mind does not exist is impossible; to affirm\nthat matter gave origin to mind is a contradiction. There is but one\nalternative: it is, that in the beginning, mind, acting through and in\nmatter, by immutable and perfect modes, through unmeasured time, caused\nmatter to assume its forms and display its phenomena; and, being mind,\nimparted mind to the universe wherever it is found: crowning all, in\nthe moral and intellectual nature of man.\n\nThus the ultimate demand of thought, of reason, and of consciousness,\nis that when we are unravelling the modes of phenomena, pushing our\ninquiries into the conditions of all existences, generalizing vast\nareas of knowledge, expressing in formula of geometry and numbers\nthe splendid rhythm and order of all things in heaven and earth,\nwe are simply finding, and expressing, the thoughts of an Infinite\nIntelligence; discovering the modes by which His immutable perfections\nwere caused to take form in matter and mind.\n\nIt is science alone that can discover and express the _mode_ of action;\nit is theology alone that must strive reverently to lead the mind up\nfrom the mode, not to the _conception_, but to the inevitable existence\nand thought of the Creator.\n\nIn doing this, to suppose that there are no intellectual difficulties\nis to manifest narrow mental grasp; but there are no absolute\ncontradictions; no incongruities intolerable to the mind. True, as\nwe have seen above, we encounter the inevitable fact of the uncreate\nexistence of the Infinite. But we have seen that this, though\ninfinitely impenetrable by us for ever, is still not repugnant to\nour reasoning and moral faculties. Indeed the eternal existence of\n_matter_ as not requiring proof is one of the assumptions of some\nmaterialists. But surely the self and necessary existence of an\nintelligent omnipotence is without measure more congruous. It has been\nargued that the eternity of matter is thinkable, because matter is\nimmutable\u2014retains its properties through every vicissitude conceivable\nin time and space. But surely gravity is an indispensable quality of\nmatter; yet take a bar of iron, weighing a thousand pounds at the sea\nlevel, four miles high, and it loses two pounds of its weight; carry\nit to the distance of the moon from the earth, and it weighs but five\nounces; and at a distance which could be computed its gravity would be\nabsolutely lost. It is conceivable that all the \u2018modes of motion\u2019 by\nwhich matter is known to us, might, if we knew enough concerning them,\nbe found to have conditions in which they would cease to operate. We\nmust know that matter is unchangeable before the argument is valid. But\neven then it is incompetent.\n\nWhat the mind asks, is power and intelligence, to account for the\nmajesty of the universe, and the existence of mind; and if their cause,\nto be such, must be admitted to be uncaused, the majority of reflective\nminds can accept this, and in doing so, can fairly rest, and fully hope.\n\nBut, this granted, the question shapes itself afresh, \u2018In the beginning\nwhat?\u2019 Had matter a coeval existence, an eternal being like God? or\ndid He create it? bring, what to our senses is something, directly out\nof nothing? None dare answer. Both suggestions refuse to be dealt with\nby reason. But the incongruity of both might vanish like starlight\nin the dawn, if we knew _what_ that is, which constitutes matter. It\nwould, perhaps, make the Divine mind more immanent than we could dare\nto imagine. But it is easier without measure, judged of by our only\nsource of knowledge, our own mental experience, to conceive of matter\nas a product of mind, than mind as a product of matter.\n\nWhat, then, is it that the reverent mean by a \u2018creative act\u2019? What is\ninvolved in the affirmation, \u2018In the beginning God created the heavens\nand the earth\u2019? _Must_ the answer be speculative? or does the evidence\nof Nature indicate a method? If the answer must be wholly speculative,\nit is without a shred of value. But if the _mode_ of creation be a\nquestion of evidence, who are the witnesses? They are those who are\nstudents and masters of the _facts_ of Nature. Willing or not willing,\nin the end, we _must_ accept the facts of Science. What, from the very\nnature and constitution of our mind, we are bound to accept as truth,\nit would be a travesty of all morality to ignore, much more to reject.\n\nWhat was gained to morals, or religion, by rejecting Galileo\u2019s\ndemonstration of a revolving earth and a central sun? When Kepler\ndemonstrated the laws of planetary motion, in the spirit of his age\nhe was obliged to suppose that the direct motion of the planets\nwas brought about by some spirit influence which he denominated\n\u2018immateriate species,\u2019 capable of overcoming the inertia of material\nbodies. But the splendid insight of Newton enabled him to perceive,\nthat the laws of planetary motion, were a consequence of the cosmical\nlaw of gravitation. This took the moving planets out of spirit hands,\nand reduced the music of their motions to a method\u2014a mechanical \u2018law.\u2019\nTo thousands that was deemed a truce to \u2018atheism;\u2019 but it is an\nunalterable truth; and men yet believe in God.\n\nWithin the range of living memory it has been held as vital to the\nexistence of theology that creation, from the stars that fringe the\nmargin of the universe, to the earth, and the crown of manhood, arose\nin six literal days. But science, with no weapon but inexorable fact,\nhas made this for ever untenable. But the foundations of religion are\nunshaken.\n\nScience has removed whole regions and \u00e6ons of phenomena, from what was\nconsidered the supernatural, to the natural; but to believe that this\nis so much lost to theology is a feeble and faithless fallacy.\n\nThat conception of the Great Creator which takes its rise in the\nmajestic law of universal gravitation must be sublimer than that which\nthought of Him as telling off spirits to move, and bear up the planets,\nin their paths.\n\nCan that be a higher view of an illimitable Creative Mind, which\nconceived of Him as a Power who caused the earth to be formed, and the\nheavens to be filled, in six literal days, rather than to think of Him\nto whom there can be no yesterday and no to-morrow, but an unchanging\nnow, as determining laws and forces, which, in the slow progression of\nuncounted ages, should express His creative will and accomplish His\nDivine idea?\n\nI have read in vain, I have thought in vain, to understand what to\nlater theologians was the method and the meaning of a creative act.\n\u2018Order is heaven\u2019s first law;\u2019 and law\u2014method\u2014is the very pulse of\norder. Surely creative action in matter could only have proceeded by\nlaw? It could only have been the prevision and predetermination, by the\ninscrutable Creator, of definite affections of matter by force, issuing\nin rhythmic motions and cosmic harmonies, which, by their progress\nthrough immeasurable time, should accomplish the creative purpose.\n\u2018Let there be light;\u2019 that is the equivalent, in human thought, of an\nincomprehensible Divine volition. \u2018And there was light,\u2019 that is, in\nhuman phrase, the affirmation of its historic accomplishment. But to\nthose who know, as we at present do, the science of light, what time,\nwhat power, what majesty of method, did its perfect accomplishment\ninvolve!\n\n\u2018And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven.\u2019 That,\nin human phrase, and according to human modes of thought, expresses the\nmysterious intent of Almighty Mind to fill space with the splendour\nwe see; and to people it with intelligence of which we can form no\nfaintest vision. \u2018And it was so,\u2019 that is the record of the realized\nintent. But how realized? Not by a material actor who\n\n    \u2018Rounded in his palm those spacious orbs,\n    And bowled them flaming through the dark profound.\u2019\n\nThat is impossible to thought; a travesty of the sublimer conceptions\npossible, even to finite minds. Then do we conceive them as, in our\nhuman sense, leaping into existence and place and relation and motion\nand order? All our knowledge repudiates this merely human conception.\n\nThe only conception we can justly form is, that in the awful mystery\nof creative action, Divine will determined law, modes of affection of\nmatter by motion, through force: making the dome of heaven and the\npeopled earth the realized will of the Eternal.\n\n\u2018And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his\nkind.\u2019 That is the utterance of the human conception, which can alone\nrepresent to us the Divine resolve to fill the earth with life\u2014and the\njoy of living things. \u2018And it was so.\u2019 But what epochs of countless\nages filled the incalculable interval! What life on life, through age\non age, moved in stately march from the lower to the higher, while\nthe rocks kept imperishable record! The facts of geology, so far as\nthey carry us, are more accurate and certain than any records of human\nhistory. And the irresistible lesson taught by the accurate study of\nthe fossil flora and fauna, from the dawn of the Laurentian epoch, is a\npersistent and upward unfolding of life-forms by law; and the operation\nof the law is as manifest, as the operation of the law of increasing\nadaptation is visible, in a historical study of naval architecture,\nfrom the first rude plank, the dangerous raft, right up, through all\nincreasing adjustments and improved design, to the latest ship with\nstately curves and splendid speed.\n\nThere is a sense indeed in which creation by evolution or development\nis taking place for ever around us. Development is evolution beginning\nat a fixed point; evolution is only development _ab initio_.\n\nEvery spore that unfolds itself into a fern, every seed that gives\norigin to another tenant of the forest, every egg that peoples earth or\nair or sea with another life, is an instance of development. It is only\nabbreviated evolution; evolution which gives a written record of its\nlaws in every stage, down to the primitive ovum. There the record of\nthe organism in itself ceases. The primitive ovum is a simple cell. The\nworm, the grayling, the eagle, the man, are evolved from such.\n\nBut can the egg unfold itself from this protoplasmic speck by any\nprocess save that of predetermined law and energy? Is not every\nlaw that shall act, and all the unchangeable power to enforce it,\ncontained potentially in that globule of matter which we cannot see?\nEvery change that is wrought, from the first that is discoverable,\nto the last that ensues, in the evolving egg, is one unbroken stream\nof method; force, with mandates, as it were, acting on matter, with\nspecial adaptations. Never did human mechanist strive more visibly to\nembody his prescribed purpose than do the progressive activities of the\nembryo lead straight to the final result. They did not, as movements,\ndetermine their own actions, or the actions of each other; they all lay\ntogether potentially from the first.\n\nIn this, if you will carry back the conception of Divine law and\npurpose to the beginning, and apply it to the incomprehensible majesty\nof the universe, I can see a miniature of suggestion as to the creative\nmethod.\n\nCan it strip theology of one ray of the splendour of Deity, to find,\nfrom the evidence of nature, that He thought, and willed into action,\nthe balanced forces and immutable laws, which were so related to each\nother, and to the foreseen requirements of onward and upward movement,\nthat their progress is music, and their products are harmonies?\u2014perfect\nadjustments\u2014and, amidst ever-changing circumstances, ever-changing\nadaptations and self-adjusted design?\n\nCan there be any splendour of the Infinite mind more ineffable and\neffulgent than the evidence, in His works, that in the beginning He\ndetermined the potency and prevision of all the life, and all the\nadaptations, that ever have emerged or can emerge?\n\nWill it be urged that this one comprehensive law of creative action,\nwith all its methods and potentialities complete in the beginning,\nmust denude history of miracle? must make all things inevitable\nsequences, and every outcome in nature through all time only what must\nbe, when the moment for its emergence had come? And that therefore the\nunforeseen would be impossible. I submit that such an inference is not\ninevitable. The universe becomes one lasting act of the unsearchable\nbut immanent Eternal. The power by which the self-adjusting mechanism\nof the universe acts, took its rise, and has its continuity, in Him.\n\nA miracle, in its broadest aspect, is a wonderful event; something,\nwhich from the known course of phenomena, science could not previse.\nScience would stultify her past and make impossible her future, if\nshe affirmed that the unprevised and marvellous could not happen.\nSays Professor Huxley: \u2018A miracle, in the sense of a sudden and\ncomplete change in the customary order of nature, is intelligible,\ncan be distinctly conceived, implies no contradiction; and therefore,\naccording to Hume\u2019s own showing, cannot be proved false by any\ndemonstrative argument.\u2019[31]\n\n [Footnote 31: Huxley\u2019s _Hume_, p. 133.]\n\nOur knowledge of the observed processes of nature erects no mental\nbarrier to the occurrence of something never before observed.\nMiracles are not, it is now broadly admitted, dependent on science,\nbut on _evidence_ for their possibility and truth. Nay, more, it is\nconceivable that, what to us might be profoundly miraculous, might be\nthe outcome of sheer and unmodified natural law.\n\nIf we could annul the interval of time between the great minds of the\nlong past and bring them into direct and intelligent contact with the\nmost marked victories of modern research and genius, what would be\nthe effect? Let it be imagined that Aristotle or Plato could stand by\nwhile Tyndall demonstrated to them in Athens, that they could hold\ndirect and instant intercourse with a friend in India; or proved to\nthem, that we can demonstrate the actual constituents of the sun and\nstars, and their physical conditions, with the same certainty as we can\ndetermine the analysis of an earthly compound; or bid the sunbeam paint\nthe portrait of a bird or beast in rapid motion; or let them gaze upon\nthe marvellous world of the minute unfolded by the modern microscope;\nand I do not hesitate to say that if he were the Aristotle or Plato of\nhis own age, standing before these triumphs of this age, he would be\nstanding in the presence of absolute miracles. Yet how have these, to\nPlato, unforeseen and wonderful events arisen? Only by discovery of,\nand absolute obedience to, the _laws of nature_ as they are for ever\nand immutably acting. Man has created nothing, interrupted nothing,\nviolated nothing: he has obeyed; and by obedience conquered.\n\nThen grant that mind, by infinite wisdom and will, gave origin to this\never-unfolding universe, by methods that are all and for ever known to\nHim, as they can never be known to us, is it according to reason to\ncontend that nothing shall ever happen _even according to the strict\nmethods of natural phenomena_ which past experience has never known?\n\nThat will happen, on the assumption of a Creative Mind as the origin\nof all, which is _needful_, to complete the universe; and what happens\nneed be no interruption, no turning aside, of the course of nature, but\nonly sublime compliance with it.\n\nBut more: one of the gravest conflicts of sheer material philosophy\nwith Theism and Theology is, that by mechanical evolution design\nis swept clean from the universe; that teleology has received its\ndeath-blow.\n\nScience finds that phenomena are self-acting, and self-adjusting. The\nenergy is competent; the method is perfect for bringing about the\nresult investigated. Science can find no more; it asks no more; and\nmaterialism says, there is no more. There is no design in it; it is,\nbecause to be at all, it must be that. There is no design in the form\nof the river-bed which the mighty waters have engraved for themselves\nin their irresistible movement down the mountain slope and along the\nwindings of the valley to the sea. It is the result of the force of\ngravity. Such is the argument.\n\nBut while science as such, in strict obedience to its canons, must stop\nat the self-adjustment of immediate phenomena, and materialism will\nstop there, the reasoning faculties of the race, as we have seen, will\nnot stop there. They must come at last, by the laws of reason, upon\nthe power and the intelligence by which the methods of nature were\nmade self-acting. Gravitation and the properties of water will account\nfor the perfect adaptation of the river to its bed, and the bed to\nthe purpose of a river. But how came gravity? How came the properties\nof water? There may be, there is, no direct design in the path of the\nAmazon or the Danube; but surely there is magnificence in the design\nthat caused the great, the cosmic _methods_ of nature so to co-operate\nas to cause those rivers inevitably to carve their perfect paths? The\ndynamics of nature are self-acting up to the very limit of our power of\nresearch; but after that, and beyond it, what? Why is the _direction_\nof nature\u2019s dynamical methods always and everywhere, through all time\nand space, beneficent and beautiful?\n\nIt is only the design, the teleology, of the old school, touched by the\nIthuriel spear of modern knowledge, and changing into a conception of\nuniversal design, that can only have originated in an infinite mind.\n\nThe \u2018law of evolution\u2019 and that of \u2018variation and the survival of the\nfittest\u2019 may, if you will, be held to account for all that narrower\nknowledge had attributed to direct design. But evolution, like\ngravitation, is only a method; and the self-adjustments demonstrated\nin the \u2018origin of species\u2019 only make it, to reason, the clearer, that\nvariation and survival is a method that took its origin in mind. It is\ntrue that the egg of a moth, and the eye of a dogfish, and the forearm\nof a tiger _must_ be what they are to accomplish the end of their\nbeing. But that only shows, as we shade our mental eyes, and gaze back\nto the beginning, the magnificence of the design that was _in_volved in\nnature\u2019s beginning, so as to be _e_volved, by the designed rhythm of\nnature\u2019s methods.\n\nWhatever matter may be; whatever force is; or whether or not both\nare the one inseverable product of omnipotent volition; the first\naffection of matter by force carried with it, potentially, the finished\npurpose of the All-wise, whatever that may be. Every instance of what\nsuch writers as Darwin are obliged to write of as \u2018contrivance\u2019 or\n\u2018adaptation\u2019 throughout this universe as it now is, or that shall yet\narise in it through all duration, are, and will be, but factors of\nrelated harmony in a stupendously vast interlocked \u2018mosaic\u2019 of design,\nwhich in its entirety has a \u2018final purpose\u2019 too great for man to see.\n\nIt is admitted by the fullest and farthest thinkers, that the\nteleological, and the mechanical views, of phenomena and their origin,\nare not antagonistic. Instead of mutually excluding each other in\nthought, they are the complement of each other.\n\nTo argue, that because we can by analysis and research, discover and\ndemonstrate the physical conditions or antecedents, that, apparently\nautomatically, bring about a manifest contrivance, therefore, we have\nexcluded the possibility of any universal primal design, is a mode of\nreasoning, the fallacy of which, surely, needs no great logical acumen\nto lay bare.\n\nBecause we discover the molecular shapes and movements that determine\nthe structure of a beautiful crystal, it would be surely illogical\nand unwarranted to say that there was no design, no arrangement in\nthe primary order of things, out of which these very conditions\narose. It is conceivable that there may be infinitely more mind in\nthe origination of that which automatically gives rise to a manifest\n\u2018contrivance,\u2019 than in directly originating it.\n\nAn ordinary watch is, as a rule, a good timekeeper, under a fixed,\nsay a temperate meridian; but take it to the arctic circle, and it\ngoes too fast; or to the torrid zone, and it goes too slow. But in a\nchronometer, delicate compensations are made, of a beautiful kind, so\ncontrived as to counteract the thermal changes. Would it be logical to\nthink of the more complex contrivance as devoid of design because it is\nself-acting?\n\nI grant that there may not be absolute parity of reasoning in the human\nas compared with the natural instance; but I only desire the reasoning\nto apply to one essential point. If primarily the methods of nature,\nwhich by their rhythmic action automatically produce contrivances,\nliving or otherwise, took their origin in mind, the contrivances so\nproduced were so designed to be produced; and this is contrivance of\nan infinitely higher order than the self-compensating balance of the\nchronometer. It is contrivances brought about by arrangements that are\ninfinitely complex, transcending all thought; and which include in\ntheir vast sweep, all time, all space, all matter, all motion, and all\ntheir relations, from the most inconceivably minute phenomenon to the\nmost stupendous that ever has happened, or can happen, as a product of\nnature.\n\nWe may easily reduce this to a practical form by illustration. The\narm or fore-limb of all mammals is constructed essentially on the\nsame type. The forearm of the horse is most highly specialized. In\nthe forearm there is, as in the human skeleton, the _radius_ and the\n_ulna_. But the ulna has lost its function, and is fused with the\nradius. What we call the knee in the horse\u2019s fore-limb is really the\nwrist. There are eight bones in the human wrist. The horse has only\nseven. Now, immediately succeeding the wrist bones in the human hand,\nare the five bones that form the palm; and these are followed by the\nfive digits or fingers.\n\nIt appears, then, that, unlike the majority of mammal hands, the horse\nis peculiar. Instead of five bones corresponding to the palm bones, it\nhas only one, which is called the \u2018cannon bone;\u2019 and this is followed\nby but one digit or finger with a huge nail. The horse then walks upon\na single finger, viz. the third, on each fore foot and each hind foot.\nWhy is this? and can we discover the history of this modification?\n\nExamine the cannon bone of a horse with care; you will find fixed on\neither side of it two delicate bones, called \u2018splints,\u2019 with actually\nno mission in the economy of the extant horse.\n\nNow go steadily back in geological time. There are three great\ngeological epochs, the primary, the secondary, and the tertiary. The\nrecent period called the quaternary is a sub-section of the last. Now\nin the quaternary and upper tertiary, fossil horses are found. They\ncorrespond with the horses we see. But in the middle of the tertiary\nepoch we come upon the horse, not only in Europe, but in India, and\nabove all in America, with the splint bones, that we find in extant\nhorses fixed to the cannon bone, as long as that bone itself, and\nprovided with small spurious or useless hoofs, while the ulna can be\ntraced for its whole length.\n\nIn the earliest miocene deposits the horse is found with these spurious\nor partially aborted toes, no longer useless, but having the full\nlength of the middle toe; making the horse of that epoch a distinctly\nthree-toed creature, and each toe operative; while the forearm is in a\ncondition normal to mammals.\n\nYet another form, found in America, shows, not only the three distinct\nand useful toes, but upon the third toe a splint, suggesting a rudiment\nof the little or fifth finger; while in the oldest of the tertiary\nrocks has again been found a horse with the fourth finger complete.\nWhile finally, in the very earliest tertiary deposits is found a horse\nwith a foot of four perfect digits, consisting of the second, the\nthird, the fourth, and fifth fingers, with a rudiment or splint of the\nfirst finger distinctly visible.\n\nSimilar facts reveal themselves in relation to the hind feet and\nlegs; and slow variations palpably affected the entire body of\nthe successive types of horse; the teeth, for example, undergoing\nremarkable successive modifications: and whilst the _Eohippus_ and the\n_Orohippus_, the last types of horse, discovered respectively in the\noldest and later of the eocene beds, possess forty-four teeth, as in a\nlarge number of fossil and extant mammalian forms, the recent horse has\nthe number reduced to forty, and their forms remarkably altered, as the\nfinal outcome of a succession of modifications.\n\nWe have here, then, a series of generic types; for the true relations\nof which to each other we are indebted to the insight of such workers\nas Huxley and Marsh and Lartet, and others. They do not afford us\nillustrations of the minute and scarcely observable modifications which\nthe law of the origin of species involves; they present us rather with\na series of family groups; but the relation between them is such as\nto leave the mind accustomed to biological investigations convinced,\nthat, could we see all the forms that occurred between them, there\ncould be no question as to the origin of these forms, from _eohippus_\nof the oldest eocene beds to _equus_ of to-day. Unlike as in a general\nsense they are, they are progressive modifications, with higher and\nhigher specializations, until, in the extant horse, the highest special\nmodification is attained.\n\nIt will harmonize with no dogma of theology, and no doctrine of\nscience, to assume that these equine forms, separated by such enormous\nepochs of time, were specially created: all accurate knowledge forbids\nthe supposition; while varieties sufficiently marked, such as the\nrace-horse, the giant and powerful dray-horse, the Shetland and the\nNorman ponies, known to be derived from a common parentage, give the\nclearest sanction to the inference, that what we now know of the\ngeological history of the horse proves it to be a product of the\nDarwinian law of evolution; that there has been no total destruction\nof equine (or any other) life in the great past; but that there has\nbeen a continuity of it, borne from region to region, and modified\ncontinuously by a thousand changing circumstances. Consequently we\nfind, in the rocky records of the past, that organic types become\nsimpler, and liker to each other, as we trace them through the\nincomplete geological record to a dim and far off age.\n\nHere, then, we have a series of such generalized types, plainly related\nto each other in time, leading us down from the horse of historic times\nto less and less specialized forms of it, as the epoch grows more\nremote; until in the upper mesozoic or lower eocene beds, we find the\nprogenitor of the line of the equine types we know, to be an animal\nwith a splay foot of five toes, adapted to slow movement in a boggy\nsoil. The slow specialization adapted it to increasing rapidity and\nease of movement, and modified states of soil; acting, without doubt,\nas an increasing protection against its enemies, and providing it\nwith an ever surer means of obtaining abundant and suitable food. And\nbeneficial variation continued to act until the noble horse, beautiful\nin form, exquisitely graceful in action, and swift as the wind, had\nbeen thus created.\n\nNow the most absolutely assured, the most universally accepted truth\nwithin the whole realm of human knowledge and experience is the\nimmutability of nature\u2019s laws; and the certainty that their action has\nbeen \u2018established for ever\u2019 through all space and all time. Great as\nwas the knowledge of ancient and classic peoples, that of which they\nknew relatively least, was nature. This arose from their inability\nto perceive the inexpressible vastness of nature, on the one hand,\nand the detailed constitution of the earth and its universal flora\nand fauna, on the other. The obvious inference as to the origin of\nthe universe, as they knew it, was, that all that constituted the\nworld and its occupants and inhabitants, mineral, vegetable, and\nanimal, were individual direct creations. But, knowing as we now\nknow, the immutability and universality of the laws of nature, in\nrelation equally to the organic and living as to the inorganic and\nnot-living, and knowing as we do the geological and pal\u00e6ontological\nhistory of the earth, and the nature and characteristics of its living\ninhabitants, it is as manifest as the axioms of geometry, that the\ndirect and supra-natural creation of new species, or even new genera,\nis absolutely untenable.\n\nNow modern biological science, guided by the splendid genius and\nceaseless research of Darwin, and the whole field of biologists, for\nthe past quarter of a century, has been able for all practical purposes\nto discover and demonstrate a great \u2018law\u2019 or method, according to which\nall the varieties of living \u2018species,\u2019 animal and vegetable, have\narisen; connecting the remotest ages of the life of the globe with the\npresent flora and fauna in one unbroken continuity, by one unchanging\nmethod. The organic history of any individual becomes an analogue of\nthe organic history of the world. The individual begins existence as\na minute ovum, and progresses to completeness. The vast series of\norganic forms, fossil and extant, began in one or more \u2018primordial\ngerms.\u2019 The law of all living things, and especially the lowliest,\nis rapid and abundant reproduction. Variations in individuals so\nreproduced are as absolutely universal as reproduction itself. It does\nnot require the accurate knowledge of the botanist or the zoologist to\ndiscover this. A careful study of any group of living forms, lowly or\nhighly organized, will make this palpable to any observer. The septic\norganisms, for example, which arise from germs (not those which arise\nfrom self-division) constantly vary; and I have been able to make use\nof this tendency so as to enable three of these wonderful organic and\nvital specks to slowly change, so as to adapt themselves to changed\nenvironments, until, in the course of years, from normally living at a\ntemperature of 60\u00b0 Fahr. they lived at last, and multiplied enormously,\nat a temperature of 157\u00b0 Fahr.; and in the slow process of adaptation,\ndemonstrated fundamental changes were undergone by the organisms.[32]\n\n [Footnote 32: _Journ. Roy. Micro. Soc._ 1887, President\u2019s Address.]\n\nA study of the Desmids, the Diatoms, the Radiolaria, or the\nForaminifera amongst minute organisms will show that variations are\nso constant and so numerous, that the determination of what is called\nspecies, is difficult, and at times, impossible.\n\nWho does not know of the varieties that are annually produced from\nseed-growths of favourite flowering plants?\u2014the pelargonium, the\nprimula, the viola, the rose, and hundreds of others.\n\nThat this is not confined to forms under cultivation is equally\nmanifest. Common observation has not noted it perhaps, but there\nare no fewer than thirteen distinct forms of the common bramble or\nblackberry, with stem, flower, and fruit sufficiently varied to have\ninduced some botanists to consider them species. Although each when\nseen is called by the majority of people \u2018the wild rose,\u2019 there are at\nthe very least seventeen natural varieties. \u2018Artificial selection\u2019 has\nhad no part in these variations and a thousand others that might be\nnamed.\n\nConsider the variations constantly arising in fowls, canaries, dogs,\nand cattle. No litter of kittens is ever precisely alike, or precisely\nlike either parent; and this is true even in human families.\n\nVariation, then, is constant and universal; it acts in all directions\nand in every living thing. If, amidst the exigencies of the history of\nan organism, some variation in the progeny is beneficial in altered\ncircumstances, it is by the very nature of things preserved. The\noffspring of all living organisms are greatly in excess of the number\nthat can reach maturity; and with variations in every organism, and in\nevery part of their organization, for ever occurring; and environments,\nduring great cycles of time, undergoing constant and enormous changes;\nit is palpable that successive modifications must arise, and through\nall the countless ages of the past have arisen: resulting always in\nthe \u2018survival of the fittest\u2019 or \u2018natural selection,\u2019 which \u2018signifies\nthe preservation of favourable individual differences and variations,\nand the destruction of those which are injurious.\u2019[33] This is\npalpable, for individuals possessed of advantage over others must\nhave the best chance of surviving and multiplying their kind; hence\narise \u2018varieties,\u2019 \u2018races,\u2019 and \u2018species;\u2019 and if the enormous age\nof the period of life upon the globe, and the vicissitudes through\nwhich it has passed, be taken into account, it is impossible for a\nbiologist to withhold consent to the fact that a \u2018law,\u2019 a method,\nhas been demonstrated, which has been a certain and powerful factor,\nin producing the variety of the flora and fauna that have filled the\nearth, from the dawn of life upon the globe, up to the extant animals\nand vegetables which are the latest outcome of this great law. This is\nthe conviction of all the experts of the world.\n\n [Footnote 33: Darwin\u2019s _Origin of Species_, 6th ed. p. 63.]\n\nThat there are other factors of evolution not yet discovered is almost\ninevitable; they, however, will be but added \u2018laws;\u2019 supplementary and\nco-ordinated methods\u2014giving greater completeness to our knowledge of\nthe origin of species.\n\nBut having reached this conclusion, we are at once compelled to ask,\nWhat is the origin of this unceasing continuity of variation in all\nliving things? this power to become constantly adapted to change of\nenvironment, and for ever, in the fittest form, to survive? Is not this\npalpably a creative method? Is it not the emergence in time and history\nof the thought and will of the Creative Power in the beginning?\u2014one of\nthe processes that lay enfolded in the very purpose of the production\nof heaven and earth, and which as a prevised method only awaited \u2018the\nfulness of time\u2019 to come inevitably into play?\n\nThe earth, as is well known, and we have already pointed out, is\nconstantly subject to minute, as well as to smaller cyclic and great\nsecular, changes. Nothing but an ability to become adapted through all\nduration to current and recurrent changes, could have made a continuity\nof the living population of the globe possible. We have found the\nprincipal \u2018law\u2019 of those adaptive changes. But because we have learned\nthe nature of the law or method, by which throughout all time, these\nchanges have been brought about; and because the method _appears_\nself-acting like the balance wheel of a chronometer, must we argue that\nthere is no design either in the method or its results? That will not\nsatisfy the constant demands of reason. Finding the law according to\nwhich a projectile moves, must not be confounded with the cause of its\nmotion.\n\n\u2018Natural selection\u2019 cannot originate anything. Variation does not\nexplain itself. Why is it a property of all living things to vary\nindefinitely and in all directions? The Darwinian law has no existence\nwithout it; but that \u2018law\u2019 no more accounts for this tendency, than the\nlaw of falling bodies explains gravitation, or shows why it acts as it\ndoes.\n\nIt is easy to explain the law of the compensations of a chronometer\nbalance, or a compensating clock pendulum; but that does not account\nfor their existence.\n\nThe law of \u2018inheritance,\u2019 the likeness of progeny to parents, is, like\nthe law of variation, universal. But why is it so? If it were not so,\nthere could be no survival of the fittest. Yet it is no more explained\nby the discovery of that law, than the nature of that which thinks, is\nexplained by a discovery of the laws of thought.\n\nSelection implies alternatives to select from. The splendid organic\nmechanism of all the animals of the earth, with their perfect relations\nto their sphere, could as a whole, only have been brought about by\nmeans that started for, and led to, that goal. \u2018The law by which\nstructures originate is one thing; those by which they are restricted,\ndirected, or destroyed is another.\u2019[34]\n\n [Footnote 34: _Origin of the Fittest_, by E. D. Cope, p. 225.]\n\nThen, because the horse becomes specialized and adapted to its\ncircumstances in a remarkable manner, leaving evidence in the rocks of\nlong severed but successive epochs, of the very manner in which it was\ncreated as we know it; and because we have proof that this method is\npractically self-acting, shall we stultify reason by assuming that in\nits self-action there is no design? that as a great rhythmic law it had\nno origin? that, because to our powers of observation it is automatic,\nit explains its own existence? or that it strips the mind, by this\nvery automatism, of any necessity for, or right of, having its origin\nexplained? None of these assumptions are congruous; they surely violate\nthe fundamental principles of thought.\n\nWe may be enabled no longer to say of any structure that it is a\n\u2018final cause;\u2019 our insight is not deep enough for that; but an equally\npowerful weapon in defence of theism takes its place: I designate it\n\u2018CONCURRENT ADAPTATION;\u2019 that is, _fitness_, for ever, throughout all\ntime and all space; and fitness absolutely constant amidst all changes.\nAdaptation is universally concurrent with existence; and whether we\nhave to account for it by sudden and unexplained action, or by the slow\noperation of laws, is a matter of no essential moment: _it is there_.\n\nNothing, for example, can be more certain, than the powerful influence\nexerted on the coloration and morphology of flowers, all over the\nearth, by the visits of insects. The insects assiduously visit flowers\nfor food, or nectar; and by their visits the pollen of one flower\nis carried to the stigmatic surface of another: so effecting cross\nfertilization. The contrivances for making insect agency efficient, are\nso numerous, so palpable, and so exquisitely perfect as to entrance\nthe observer. One flower has its nectar in a tube, to reach which the\nproboscis of the visiting insect must touch and split a delicate tissue\nand expose the moist adhesive surfaces of a couple of pollen masses,\nwhich adhere to and are carried away by the insect, in such a position\nthat, in visiting another flower of the same species, it must deposit\nthe pollen where alone it can do its fertilizing work.\n\nAnother flower is so contrived, that to reach the nectar, the visiting\ninsect must touch a sensitive surface causing the rupture of a tissue,\nwhich confines a pollen mass; but, on the rupture of the tissue, this\nflies out like an arrow at the unbidden guest; and an adhesive end\nsticks to the insect, which is startled away; but, visiting another\nflower of a like kind, deposits, in the right place, the fertilizing\npollen it unconsciously carries.\n\nAnother flower has an ingenious arrangement by which it lures an insect\ninto its corolla, and then imprisons it, provided with plenty of food,\nuntil its anthers are ripe, when it sheds their pollen over the insect;\nafter which, by a special organic arrangement, it opens the prison door\nand lets its visitor emerge, charged with pollen, to visit another\nsimilar flower, which will inevitably be in a condition to receive\nfertilization from its pollen-covered body.\n\nThousands of other instances might be given.\n\nNow we know perfectly the mutability of flowers. It is highly probable\nthat the visiting insect and the visited flower were wholly unlike,\nin some instances, what they now are, twenty thousand years ago; and\nit is equally improbable that they will be what they now are, twenty\nthousand years hence. But that which this great biological law affirms,\nis, that whatever the changes, and however brought about, past or\nfuture, there never has been, there is not, and there never will be,\nan instant\u2019s cessation of concurrent adaptation:\u2014the operation of the\n\u2018law\u2019 that secures to all that lives adjustment to its environments.\nThat surely must be a method that took its origin in mind; and it must\nhave had its prevised and preordered place potentially assigned, from\nthe earliest creative movement; as it must continue to have unceasing\naction to the very terminus of all organic existence.\n\nDesign, purpose, intention, appear, then, when all the facts of the\nuniverse are studied in the light of all our reasoning faculties, to\nbe ineradicable from our view of the creation. Teleology does not now\ndepend for its existence on Paleyean \u2018instances;\u2019 but all the universe,\nits whole progress in time and space, is one majestic evidence of\nteleology. The will and purpose running through it are as incapable of\nbeing shut out of our consciousness and reasoning faculties, as its\nphenomena and their modes are of being rendered wholly imperceptible by\nour senses.\n\nA \u2018mind\u2019 that is not a mind, in any sense as we know it, is, to us,\nnothing. Will, to be will, to us, must be such as we know of; though\nit be infinite. Intelligence that is infinite cannot cease to be\nintelligence. To an infinite intelligence, as to us, in the same\nconditions, the properties of conic sections must be what we know\nthem to be. But an Infinite Mind would differ absolutely from ours in\nthat there could be nothing tentative, nothing experimental in its\nmethods, through all time and space. Only the right means would ever be\nemployed, or the right ends ever be brought about. But, surely, even\nan Infinite will, in the realm of matter, must _use_ means. When human\npower takes a pebble from a great height and places it at the sea-level\nit has only done what gravity could have done. But when human will by\ncontinuity of purpose combines materials to form a calculating machine,\nwe have an evidence of the action of mind; something, which, while it\nis made and exists by the very laws of nature, yet the laws of nature\ncould not, by themselves, have made.\n\nSimilar results must be due, then, to similar conditions. The\nteleology, that is the inseverable motive, as it were, of all the\nactivities and interactions of nature, must be the product of mind.\n\nThen was _man_, as a physical being, the terminal link in the great\nprogressive chain of living forms that had peopled the earth through\ncountless ages? Or does he, in physical origin, stand apart? Is he a\nbeing from whose existence a new creative epoch dates? Or is he the\nfinal product of the vast ancestral line of life that ran through all\nthe ages? Did God make man \u2018of the dust of the ground\u2019 by some process\nof which we can form no conception, and can discover no trace? Or is\nthere evidence that the Creator made man of the dust of the ground by\nmajestic laws, acting over vast epochs, until he had become meet for\nthe inbreathing of a higher nature?\n\nThat is a question of profoundest interest. But if the authoritative\nand final demonstration were given either way to-morrow, we, in\nourselves, should remain unaltered. We should be conscious of no\nuplifting and of no fall. Immediate or mediate creation, if God be\nthe author, must be alike Divine. To fear the consequences of honest\ntruth seeking research on this momentous question, is to manifest\nlittle love of truth for its own sake, on the one hand; and little\nstalwartness of personal conviction, as to the security of the\nfoundation of professed beliefs, on the other. Whether we will or not,\nthe whole matter will be searched to its deepest depths. But amidst all\nthe conflict of opinion as to details, in one thing all are agreed,\nand that is, that the gulf between man and the noblest apes is such\nas to be practically without comparison. Whatever science may be able\nto show ultimately as to the relation of man to the anthropoid apes,\nthere is to-day no biologically demonstrated and direct kinship. That\nthe anthropoid apes, as we know them, were in any proper sense the\n_direct_ ancestors of man, is not a serious contention of even extreme\nevolutionists. The facts before us do not justify it. The highest ape\nis still an ape; and whilst the oldest human remains, such as the\nEugis and Neanderthal skulls, discovered in association with evidences\nof immense antiquity, have remarkable characteristics, pointing in\nsome respects in the direction of the great apes, they are still the\ncrania of men. After a critical and exhaustive examination of the two\nskulls above referred to, Professor Huxley says concerning the Eugis\nskull: \u2018Its measurements agree equally well with those of some European\nskulls. And assuredly there is no mark of degradation about any part\nof its structure. It is, in fact, a fair average human skull, which\nmight have belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the\nthoughtless brains of a savage.\u2019[35] And in summing up the results of\nan equally critical examination of the far more remarkable Neanderthal\nskull, the same unquestionable authority says: \u2018In no sense, then,\ncan the Neanderthal bones be regarded as the remains of a human being\nintermediate between men and apes. At most they demonstrate the\nexistence of a _man_ whose skull may be said to revert somewhat towards\nthe pithecoid type.... And indeed, though truly the most pithecoid of\nknown human skulls, the Neanderthal cranium is by no means so isolated\nas it appears to be at first, but forms in reality the extreme term of\na series leading gradually from it to the highest and best developed\nof human crania.\u2019[36] Nothing has arisen to seriously modify these\nauthoritative statements. No thorough anatomist practically familiar\nwith the structure of the anthropoids on the one side, and man on the\nother, could attempt to argue that man can be directly a descendant\nof chimpanzee, gorilla, or orang. \u2018I may say,\u2019 says Huxley, \u2018that the\nfossil remains of man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to take us\nappreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid form, by the modification of\nwhich he has probably become what he is.\u2019[37]\n\n [Footnote 35: _Man\u2019s Place in Nature_, Huxley, p. 157.]\n\n [Footnote 36: _Man\u2019s Place in Nature_, Huxley, p. 157.]\n\n [Footnote 37: _Ibid._ p. 159.]\n\nBut let us beware of mistaking, or even distorting, the true meaning\nof this, as understood by the philosophical evolutionist. It does not\nfor a moment place the physical nature of man outside the range of the\ngreat creative law of natural selection. No arrangement of the monkeys\ncan present us with a rational order of development, of which man is\nphysically the latest and highest outcome. But the precursor of man,\nof whose actual existence no direct proof has yet arisen, is assumed,\non the evidence of absolutely innumerable details, the full value of\nwhich is only to be clearly seen by experts, to have ascended, not from\nany anthropoid,\u2014chimpanzee, gorilla, nor orang,\u2014but these apes are\nfound to form the nearest branch existing, produced by the same trunk,\nout of which, physically, man\u2019s nature was, by the law of descent,\nevolved.\n\nThat the embryological and anatomical resemblances between man and the\nhighest apes are of a profound and striking character, no sane educated\nman would attempt to traverse; and that this involves close biological\nrelationship, and proves the operation on each, of the same organic\nlaws of development, so far as physical origin is concerned, is also\ncertain.\n\nThat there are evidences of an antiquity of the human race, as such,\nimmensely disproportionate to that indicated in the absolutely\nunreliable and useless \u2018received\u2019 chronologies, it would be folly to\ndoubt and immorality to neglect. It is evidenced by man\u2019s works, which\nare shown, without question, to be of indefinitely vast antiquity; and\ncorrespond, in the main, with the works of races of men still living.\nIt is shown by the enormous antiquity of races of men as we know them;\nby the vast age of languages, made evident, by a deep analysis of their\nstructure, as sister and parent languages; as well as by the great age\nof even human remains.\n\nNow all this, taken in connection with the anatomical structure and\nembryological development of man, makes it impossible to suppose that\nman\u2019s physical nature was not a product of the same great creative\nlaws, the same vital processes, as those that gave origin to the\nchimpanzee or the gorilla; a slow creation, through a long line of\nvaried life, from \u2018the dust of the ground,\u2019 the elements of the earth.\nThere is in this relation an almost marvellous insight in David\u2019s song:\u2014\n\n    \u2018I will give thanks unto Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:\n    Wonderful are Thy works;\n    And that my soul knoweth right well.\n    My frame was not hidden from Thee,\n    When I was made in secret,\n    And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.\n    Thine eyes did see mine unperfect substance;\n    And in Thy book were all my members written,\n    Which day by day were fashioned,\n    When as yet there was none of them.\u2019[38]\n\n [Footnote 38: Ps. cxxxix. vers. 14-16.]\n\nBy what link man is united physically to the great series below him,\nby what line and in what specific manner he arose, it has not yet been\ngiven to science to determine. Biological science sees, with inevitable\ncertainty, that he must have been in vital union with that series; that\nphysically he is a part of the majestic organic whole, from the first\ndawn of life upon the globe until now.\n\nAt the same time it is equally certain that other agencies which\ncould not have acted on ape or other mammal, nor indeed on any other\nliving form besides, came into operation, when man, as such, became an\ninhabitant of this earth.\n\nNor is it by any means other than conceivable that science, which\nhas transformed the face of the world in fifty years, may be able to\ndemonstrate the actual physical line of man\u2019s origin. But if that be\nso, if the line along which man\u2019s physical nature was moulded of the\ndust of the ground, by the Creative Mind and will, were made so plain\nthat none could refuse the evidence, it may leave undisturbed our\nmental peace, and unaltered our conviction of the dignity and majesty\nof man. It would leave our responsibilities undiminished, our rights\nuninfringed, and our hopes unclouded.\n\nThe saint is none the less saintly, because he is ancestrally the last,\nand prevised outcome, of an inconceivably grand progression of creative\nlaws, operating through countless cycles, than he would have been, as\nthe descendant of a man produced by an isolated act of creation. The\nsong of the nightingale is no iota less rich in fluent melody because\nits larynx was modified from less melodious forms; and the martyrdom\nof Paul, or the noble sacrifices of heroes and reformers to secure the\nsacred rights of liberty and truth for their fellow-men, are none the\nless exalted because we must trace their ancestry to the slow operation\nof creative laws, which in the great unbroken stream of life upon the\nearth gave origin to the monod, the coral-polyp, the mollusc, the\nlizard, the aye-aye, and the chimpanzee. Verily, if the researches of\nscience demonstrate that this was the method of creative action, we may\nnot murmur.\n\nThe sovereignty of man does not depend on a particular view of the\nexact manner in which the Creator caused the elements of the earth to\nproduce his frame. \u2018And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the\nground;\u2019 it is not _how_ He so formed him. None has power to affirm\nor to deny how, unless with reverent hands he find it written in the\nrocks, or woven indelibly with the very structure of man himself. It is\nbecause men have interpreted, without evidence, the stages of creative\naction, and welded these non-essentials with iron girdles of dogma,\nthat faith has again and again been imperilled.\n\nThe true crown of manhood, the final majesty and exalted mystery of\ncreative power, was not man\u2019s _body_, but his soul. \u2018And breathed into\nhis nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul,\u2019 is the\nexpression of that which gives his unshared dignity to man.\n\nWhat is meant by this, who shall explain? Who can peer into the depths\nof a mystery so profound? It defies all our powers of search; dare\nwe make a special interpretation or understanding of how this was\nbrought about, an essential of belief? Is it not enough that it was the\nsupreme, as it was, so far as our present knowledge will carry us, the\nfinal outcome of creation?\n\nWhen the Creative Power and wisdom had built man\u2019s physical nature of\nthe dust of the ground, whether suddenly or slowly, by this method\nor by that, He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and\nhe became a living soul. It was the possession of what we call the\nsoul that gave to the manhood its being. How this was imparted, who\ncan know? who shall explain? Even if the very _method_ be at last\ndiscovered, or approximated, the unalterable question must remain,\n_why_ the method, the law, brought about so sublime a result, and from\nwhence came the conditions that made the laws direct themselves to\nsuch an exalted end. In fine, how physical laws could so be caused to\nact as to give origin to consciousness, thought, and moral faculties.\nPlainly, this \u2018end\u2019 must have lain in the Divine \u2018beginning;\u2019 and we\nmust go behind and below the mechanics of phenomena and explain their\n_vera causa_; we must find our way above matter not-living in the great\npast, and fathom the very essence of the cause that made it live,\nbefore we can attempt to explain the origin of that self in man which\nlooks upon and _knows itself_. We have seen that matter and force will\nnot, as sole factors, lend themselves to a philosophy of the origin and\nexplanation of this. A linear arrangement of the ascending mentality of\nbrutes does not really explain, or even minimize, the difficulties of\nthe problem. It simply makes the area of the problem the wider.\n\n\u2018I am,\u2019 \u2018I can,\u2019 \u2018I ought,\u2019 \u2018I think,\u2019 with equal freedom\u2014of an atom or\na universe, of a rosebud or a Deity, of myself or of my race, of the\ngrandeur of right and the baseness of wrong\u2014these are the impenetrable\nmysteries which no property known to us in matter, and no process ever\nseen by us in matter and force, can ever _explain_.\n\nNo doubt the most profound and active minds amongst men will always\nendeavour to correlate the access even of mind, with modifications of\ncerebral and neural matter. But if that be approximately done, the real\nproblem will remain simply untouched. True, we can afford no better\nexplanations than those which philosophy offers; but we may not blind\nourselves to the true value of these. Mind is inseverably associated\nwith neural matter; we do not know, and cannot even think of it, as\nemerging as a product of neural matter. We must distinguish clearly\nbetween scientific evidence and plausibilities of a philosophical kind\nexpressed in scientific language. We shall be fascinated again and\nagain with a brilliant intellectual arrangement of things known, with\nthings guessed, leading to hypothetical \u2018interpretations\u2019 of the most\nimpenetrable mysteries. But the fact remains, that the activities of\nintellect are inexpressible in terms of matter and motion. Mind only\ncan give origin to mind. Until it is congruous to think that parallel\nlines can enclose a space, that 2+2=7, that out of nothing something\ncan come, it will be incongruous, in spite of subtle and ceaseless\neffort, to construct hypotheses by which _y_ shall by its own act\nchange into _x_, or, in other words, by which mind, with its absolute\ndisparity to matter, shall come forth as an unaided and necessary\nproduct of matter as affected by motion.\n\n\n                     MORRISON AND GIBS, EDINBURGH,\n             PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY\u2019S STATIONERY OFFICE.\n\n\n\n\n                           Theological Books\n                           PUBLISHED AT THE\n                     WESLEYAN-METHODIST BOOK-ROOM.\n\n\n Arthur\u2019s (Rev. W., M.A.) Religion without God, and God without\n Religion.\n\n    I.\u2014POSITIVISM AND MR. FREDERIC HARRISON, 2s., paper covers.\n   II.\u2014AGNOSTICISM AND MR. 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