378 SPARKS FROM A GEOLOGIST'S HAMMER. 



comprehensive. The explanations of science are held to 

 be valid, but they do not go far enough; they are not 

 ultimate explanations. By the inherent principles of our 

 mental being we postulate and posit motive and agency 

 behind the last explanation of science. 



IX. As design is the necessary implication of parts co- 

 ordinated to each other, or to a general concept, so meta- 

 physical cause is the only rational explanation of those 

 ultimate physical antecedents which belong to the cate- 

 gory of sub-causes or scientific causes. Of metaphysical 

 cause science professes to have no knowledge, holding that 

 invariable antecedence is the scientific conception of caus- 

 ation. But, manifestly, no phenomenon comes into ex- 

 istence because another phenomenon precedes. The pre- 

 cedence is the sign of antecedent efficiency. So the law 

 under which a phenomenon arises is modal, not causal, 

 and implies prior ordination, as the subordinated event 

 implies transcendent causation. The conditio sine qua non 

 of a phenomenon is not its essential cause, but the condi- 

 tion of the operativeness of a certain law which expresses 

 a method of activity of essential cause. The notion of 

 metaphysical cause is therefore the underlying ground of 

 all the ultimate conception of science. 



It is well understood that even metaphj^sical that is, 

 ultimate and essential cause becomes efficient and actual 

 only under the concurrence of certain conditions, which, 

 because they contribute to the result, may be denominated 

 concauses. We may define cause, if we please, as the 

 whole body of coexistences without which a result would 

 not exist. This is a complex but perfectly intelligible 

 conception. It may be best to employ the true cause in 

 such a sense. But then we have no name for that one 



