RELIGIOUS RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 839 



force known as such in consciousness ; and the dissociation 

 reaches its extreme in the thoughts of the man of science, 

 who interprets in terms of force not only the visible changes 

 of sensible bodies, but all physical changes whatever, even up 

 to the undulations of the ethereal medium. Nevertheless, 

 this force (be it force under that statical form by which 

 matter resists, or under that dynamical form distinguished as 

 energy) is to the last thought of in terms of that internal 

 energy which he is conscious of as muscular effort. He is 

 compelled to symbolize objective force in terms of subjective 

 force from lack of any other symbol. 



See now the implications. That internal energy which in 

 the experiences of the primitive man was always the imme 

 diate antecedent of changes wrought by him that energy 

 which, when interpreting external changes, he thought of 

 along with those attributes of a human personality connected 

 with it in himself; is the same energy which, freed from 

 anthropomorphic accompaniments, is now figured as the cause 

 of all external phenomena. The last stage reached is recogni 

 tion of the truth that force as it exists beyond consciousness, 

 cannot be like what we know as force within consciousness ; 

 and that yet, as either is capable of generating the other, they 

 must be different modes of the same. Consequently, the final 

 outcome of that speculation commenced by the primitive 

 man, is that the Power manifested throughout the Universe 

 distinguished as material, is the same Power which in our 

 selves wells up under the form of consciousness. 



It is untrue, then, that the foregoing argument proposes to 

 evolve a true belief from a belief which was wholly false. 

 Contrariwise, the ultimate form of the religious consciousness, 

 ia the final development of a consciousness which at the 

 outset contained a germ of truth obscured by multitudinous 



errors. 



660. Those who think that science is dissipating religious 

 beliefs and sentiments, seem unaware that whatever of mystery 



