M ONER A, AND THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 569 



vibrations and sound-perception, of ether-vibrations and light-perception. 

 A certain, even quantitatively definite relation obtains between the 

 intensity of stimulation and the stimulated effect, but that relation is 

 neither one of equivalence nor of convertibility. This fact is universal 

 in Nature, but becomes the more obvious the less the mutuallv affect- 

 ing substances resemble each other. It is just as impossible that one 

 kind of force can be converted into another kind of force, as it is im- 

 possible for any kind of force to originate out of nothing, or to exist 

 without substratum. 



A " force-directing " machine or apparatus corresponds to a well- 

 known intelligible fact. A " force-transforming " machine or apparatus 

 corresponds to something altogether unintelligible. If substances had 

 really any such transforming effect on forces, even then they would 

 themselves constitute specifically intervening powers. But this also is 

 hyperbolical, for it does not adequately express the part which sub- 

 stances actually play in the manifestation of forces. 



The now so famous notion of the equivalence and convertibility of 

 forces indicates certainly a desirable attempt to bring under the grasp 

 of Science the subtile balance of energies constituting our phenomenal 

 world, but it partakes still too much of the old metaphysical weakness, 

 under which we are wont to seize the shadow and lose the substance. 

 By admitting molecular affections into the vicious circle of mechanical 

 equivalence, it has, however, imported into it an insuppressibly quali- 

 tative element, that sooner or later, by its intense expansiveness, will 

 break the narrowing spell, and open to scientific knowledge new fields 

 of unexpected wealth. 



The whole mechanical view of Nature rests chiefly on the suppo- 

 sition that effects are equal to their causes, that they are indeed the 

 causes themselves, metamorphosed in appearance. This notion is radi- 

 cally erroneous, and can never lead to an understanding of reality. 

 Causa non wquat effectum. In Nature there exists nothing correspond- 

 ing to the so-called efficient causes of science, whether single or plural. 

 The scientific conception of cause is a dynamical fiction, made to suit 

 a realm of phantasmal inertia, in which molecularly imperturbable 

 masses pursue forever an unopposed course in a resistless medium. 

 How can we gain an insight into reality by always mathematizing it 

 away ? 



In Nature all manifestations are the work of opposition and pertur- 

 bation ; agitation of preexisting states, and subversion of the same. 

 It is in this intrinsic potentiality and mutual affectibility of so-called 

 masses that Nature has its being, its subsistence, and its perfectibility. 

 The substrata of reality are not merely ponderable or imponderable 

 vehicles of locomotion ; but concentrations of actual and potential 

 energies, thrilling through and through with consonant sensitiveness, 

 reverberating with an accent of their own every commotion from the 

 centre of the skies to the centre of the earth. 



