1882. 99 Ttans. Ni Ve Aes Sez. 
was no Pantheist.. The doctrine of “the convertibility of the forces,” 
or, as others have preferred to state it, ‘the persistence of force,” 
gives us a single infinite force as the life of the world; and this neces- . 
sarily identifies itself with what the Christian calls God. 
Spencer, indeed, maintains that we cannot know the infinite; but he 
himself calls it “the First Cause ;’’ declares it is the vital agency in 
every change, and proclaims it “ productive,” and shows thus a clear 
knowledge of it in the weightiest possible relations. 
Tyndall hesitates to speak thus plainly, and says: ‘I will not call 
him, or it, a cause or a power;” but silence is not philosophy. If there 
is this single and universal agency, the consequence follows that all 
nature’s movement is due to this one great cause, which originally 
shaped the earth and formed the heavens. 
Correlation lays the foundation for a belief in the theistic concep- 
tion. We have but to prove the intelligence, and the moral and per- 
sonal character of this infinite cause, and we have before us what 
Christ called the “‘ Lord of heaven and earth ;” and this, the familiar 
argument of Paley, and the rest of our teleological writers, enables us 
to do triumphantly. 
In view of this great generalization, of one only force in the uni- 
verse, the whole perplexing and obscuring maze of second causes and 
minor forces disappears—we are face to face with the infinite, with 
which alone we have to do. Thus, while Evolution seems almost to 
banish God from the creation, the profounder philosophy of Correlation 
restores this grand conception, and makes us feel that in very truth it 
is in the First Cause that ‘‘ we live, and move, and have our being.” 
January 30th, 1882. 
SECTION OF GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 
The President, Dr. NEwBErRRY, in the chair. 
Fifty-seven persons present. 
The committee, consisting of the President and Recording Secretary, 
to whom had been referred the preparation of a memoriai to the au- 
thorities of the State, regarding the completion of the volumes of the 
Geological Survey, reported the following resolutions, which were unani- 
mously adopted by the Academy. 
Whereas, A large amount of new and valuable material has been 
prepared by PRor. JAMES HALL for the completion of his series of 
reports on the Paleontology of New York, many of the plates having 
been already engraved; and, 
Whereas, The publication of this material would require only a rela- 
