THE LAW OF SUBSTANCE. 477 



must necessarily underlie every permanent existence and the universe 

 itself. 



The number of world-riddles, as Haeckel says, is diminishing 

 rapidly, and our scientific knowledge has come to be so far-reaching that 

 if we cannot resolve every minor problem of the universe, we have at 

 least gone far toward the solution of the mightiest among the larger 

 questions. One 'comprehensive question/ as he calls it, remains: What 

 is the foundation of the 'Law of Substance,' the law of the persistence 

 of matter and its attribute, force? 



"What is the real character of this mighty world-wonder that the 

 realistic scientist calls Nature or the Universe, that the idealist philoso- 

 pher calls Substance or the Cosmos, what the pious believer calls God?" 



"We must admit that we know as little of its essence, as did the 

 ancients or the philosophers of the later centuries, up to our own. The 

 mystery deepens as we probe it; there remains beneath all and behind all 

 an apparently 'unknowable,' to-day, as in all earlier times." Haeckel 

 throws no new light upon this eternal sphinx-life. He claims that the 

 eternity of matter, with its inalienable eternity of unchanging attri- 

 butes, its eternally persistent motion and energy, means eternal life of 

 the universe, with never-ending renewal of such movements as we are 

 now conscious of and in this probably all men of science are ready to 

 agree with him. But he goes on to assert that the necessary conclusion 

 is the destruction of 'the three central dogmas of the dualistic philoso- 

 phy — the personality of God, the immortality of the soul and the free- 

 dom of the will.' He finds few philosophers willing to go with him to 

 the end of his logic and thinks that 'consecutive thought is a rare 

 phenomenon in nature.' The majority of philosophers are desirous of 

 clinging to the old beliefs on the one hand, while taking hold of the 

 monism of the newer time on the other, seeking to ride both the differ- 

 ently moving steeds and usually ending by dropping from the younger 

 at the limit of their powers of holding on. 



This has undoubtedly been true in the past and will probably remain 

 true in the future and as long as man retains his apparently eternal and 

 immortal convictions relating to a higher power; but, admitting 

 Haeekel's accusation and going with him to the ultimate of his deduced 

 facts and law, it seems extremely probable that, arrived at its end, they 

 will all be found much in the position of Haeckel himself, confronting 

 the deduction of Clausius and Lord Kelvin, and will still ask the un- 

 answerable question: 



What lies beyond? Who or What inaugurated this eternity? What 

 or Who originated matter? What or Who marked the limits of the uni- 

 verse? If limitless: Who and What filled it with matter and motion and 

 life? 



There will still within the soul of every thinking human being re- 



