ANIMALS NOT AUTOMATA. 419 



what power its motion is continued after it leaves his hand, does not 

 show that he is not the cause of the killing. 



If the knowledge of the intermediate changes is a necessary condi- 

 tion to the exercise of the power which produces the final result, what 

 becomes of the hypothesis of causation by material movements, or 

 forces, which know nothing ? In regard to the special phenomena in 

 hand, it would seem that no power less facile, or less variable and 

 adjustable in its application than that of intelligent effort, could be 

 adequate ; and that no blind power or force, the effects of which must 

 of necessity be uniform, could, from the same conditions, produce such 

 diverse effects as those attributed to the man and the frog. 



Considering the clear line of demarcation which there is between 

 those cases of change for which we are conscious of making effort and 

 those for which we are not, I do not see how the discovery of any num- 

 ber of cases of the latter discredits the testimony of consciousness as 

 to the former. All this exhibition of material phenomena, then, really 

 weighs very little on either side of the question as to the existence of 

 intelligent or material causality; and this little, I think, may be fairly 

 claimed on the side of the intelligent. 



There is another criterion which, as Prof. Huxley, in applying a 

 somewhat analogous test, has very appropriately said, " though it could 

 not be used in dealing with questions which are susceptible of demon- 

 stration, is well worthy of consideration in a case like the present." 

 I cannot demonstrate, but I have great faith in the proposition that all 

 progress in truth will increase the happiness and conduce to the eleva- 

 tion of man. I also have some faith in the converse of this proposition 

 that whatever tends to diminish our happiness and degrade our posi- 

 tion will be found to be not true. 



In this case, by adopting Prof. Huxley's views, we should be de- 

 prived of all the dignity of conscious power, and with it of all the 

 cheering and elevating influences of the performance of duty ; for that 

 which has no power can have no duties. Instead of companionship 

 with a Superior Intelligence, communicating his thoughts to us in the 

 grandeur and beauty of the material universe the poetic imagery, of 

 which it is the pure and perfect type and in his yet higher and more 

 immediate manifestations in the soul, we should be doomed to an in- 

 glorious fellowship with insensate matter, and subjected to its blind 

 forces. That sublime power that grandeur of effort by which the 

 gifted logician, with resistless demonstration, permeates and illumi- 

 nates realms which it tasks the imagination to traverse; and that yet 

 more God-like power by which the poet commands light to be, and 

 light breaks through chaos upon his beautiful creations, would no more 

 awaken our admiration, or incite us to lofty effort. We should be de- 

 graded from the high and responsible position of independent powers 

 in the universe co-workers with God in creating the future to a 

 condition of mere machines and instruments operated by "stimuli" 



