504 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



his studies have not been barren of tbe best fruit of tbe investigation 

 of Nature, be will bave enougb sense to see tbat when Spinoza 6ays 

 "Per Deuin intelligo ens absolute infinitum, boc est substantiara con- 

 stantem infinitis attributis," tbe God so conceived is one tbat only a 

 very great fool would deny, even in bis beart. Physical science is as 

 little atbeistic as it is materialistic. 



So witb respect to immortality. As physical science states tbis 

 problem, it seems to stand thus : Is tbere any means of knowing 

 whether the series of states of consciousness, which has been causally 

 associated for threescore years and ten with the arrangement and 

 movements of innumerable millions of successively different material 

 molecules, can be continued, in like association, with some substance 

 which has not the properties of " matter and force " ? As Kant said, 

 on a like occasion, if anybody can answer that question, he is just the 

 man I want to see. If be says tbat consciousness can not exist except 

 in relation of cause and effect with certain organic molecules, I must 

 ask how he knows that ; and if he says it can, I must put the same 

 question. And I am afraid that, like jesting Pilate, I shall not think it 

 worth while (having but little time before me) to wait for an answer. 



Lastly, with respect to the old riddle of the freedom of the will. 

 In the only sense in which the word freedom is intelligible to me — 

 that is to say, the absence of any restraint upon doing what one likes 

 within certain limits — physical science certainly gives no more ground 

 for doubting it than the common sense of mankind does. And if phys- 

 ical science, in strengthening our belief in tbe universality of causa- 

 tion and abolishing chance as an absurdit}', leads to the conclusions of 

 determinism, it does no more than follow the track of consistent and 

 logical thinkers in philosophy and in theology before it existed or was 

 thought of. Whoever accepts the universality of the law of causation 

 as a dogma of philosophy, denies the existence of uncaused phenome- 

 na. And the essence of that which is improperly called the free-will 

 doctrine is that occasionally, at any rate, human volition is self caused, 

 that is to say, not caused at all ; for to cause one's self one must have 

 anteceded one's self — which is, to say the least of it, difficult to imagine. 



Whoever accepts the existence of an omniscient Deity as a dogma 

 of theology, affirms that tbe order of things is fixed from eternity to 

 eternity ; for the foreknowledge of an occurrence means that the oc- 

 currence will certainly happen ; and the certainty of an event happen- 

 ing is what is meant by its being fixed or fated.* 



* I may cite in support of tins obvious conclusion of sound reasoning, two authorities 

 who will certainly not be regarded lightly by Mr. Lilly. These are Augustine and Thomas 

 Aquinas. The former declares that " Fate" is only an ill chosen name for Providence. 



" Frorsus divina procidentia regna constituuntur humana. Quae si propterca quis- 

 quam fato tiibuit, quia ipsam Dei voluntatcm vol potcstatem fati nomine appcllat, scntcn- 

 tiamtencaf, linguam corrigat." 1 — Augustinus Dc Civilatc Dei, V, c. i. 



The other great doctor of the Catholic Church, "Divus Thomas," as Puarrz calls him, 

 whose marvelous grasp and subtilty of intellect seem to me to be almost without a paral- 



