380 SPARKS FROM A GEOLOGIST'S HAMMER. 



they are caused; they have to be explained and accounted 

 for; they imply some real cause whose bidding they exe- 

 cute. Still more manifest is this when we note the plan 

 and method and correlation of their activity. They build; 

 they create mathematical forms and mechanical structures; 

 they fit part to part; they think, they foresee, they pur- 

 pose, unless they are the mere servants of some intelli- 

 gent cause. Tliat is the cause, therefore, ultimate, self- 

 sustained, voluntary and discerning, and working toward 

 ultimate and thinkable ends, which employs these instru- 

 mentalities under the concurring conditions and coactions, 

 to select, move and dispose material with reference to the 

 organized result, guided while it acts physically on mat- 

 ter, by a clear conception of a structural end, and an 

 intellio-ent selection and arrangement of material suited 

 most perfectly for the realization of the end. 



The notion of metaphysical cause, in spite of the formal 

 restriction of the logic of science, has found constant ex- 

 pression in scientific language under the name of force. 

 This, like the assumed atom and molecule of physics, the 

 ethereal medium and the ultimate incompressibility of 

 matter is a purely metaph3'sical conception. It is a name 

 which the necessities of thinking have impelled us to adopt 

 for the efficiency transmitted from or through the phe- 

 nomenon which stands in the place of invariable antece- 

 dent. Yet the ordinary use of this term in the pages of 

 science leaves questions still deeper which offer themselves 

 as subjects of analytic thought. Is force an entity or an 

 attribute? If an entity, is it self-acting or subordinated? 

 If subordinated, what is the nature of the power which 

 subordinates it? If self-acting, then the discernment and 

 design revealed in the results of its activity are attri- 



