248 Force ^ Energy, and Will 



will not fail to respect. Mr. Bain,^ after speaking of tlie 

 general importance of truth, adds, * We are not surprised if 

 an element of such importance as a means should be often 

 regarded as an absolute e7id to be pursued irrespective of 

 consequences ';2 and Mr. Mill, in his essay on the utility of 

 religion, proceeds throughout on the principle that truth is 

 valuable only for its utility. 



As to the general utility of truth, there can of course be 

 no question, any more than that the love of it ought to be 

 an all-powerful sentiment. But I go further than this, and 

 in common with all those who accept the theistic postulate, 

 can logically, as well as heartily, affirm, however perplexing 

 may be the aspect of the universe, that it must yet be good, 

 and that the most complete knowledge of truth must be 

 desirable for mankind. 



In conclusion I would venture to urge that Professor 

 Tyndall's teaching, the tendencies of which may, I believe, be 

 so justly deprecated, largely reposes on the denial of the dis- 

 tinctness between diverse physical powers or activities, on the 

 strength of their quantitative equivalence, and on the pre- 

 sentation of force (or energy) as a persistent real substance, 

 which eternally ebbs and flows through a world of sensible 

 phenomena (amongst which phenomena we ourselves are 

 ranged), while the ebbing and flowing substance is represented 

 as really constituting that which we mistakenly consider our 

 consciousness, our reason, and our wiU. 



Such teaching is but a supreme application of the doctrine 

 of the persistence and transformation of force (or energy) 

 which, as expressing the quantitative equivalence of activi- 

 ties, is indeed an important truth, but which in the sense too 

 often apprehended, I cannot but deem a misleading super- 

 stition. It is a superstition which cannot be too soon 



^ Mental and Moral Science, p. 106. See also pp. 359 and 444. 

 2 Pp. 73 et seq. 



