PHILOSOPHICAL CONCLUSIONS. 375 



(which we describe under the simile of purpose of the eternal 

 mind) becomes expressed in another realm of existence (which 

 we describe in terms of form and function of living matter). 



When we define matter as being of various elemental 

 kinds, their differences being expressed by their behavior 

 under sundry conditions, and called properties or qualities, 

 we proceed on the assumption that these properties are char- 

 acteristic of the particular kind of matter, and have been from 

 its first existence, so that there is no evolution : the properties 

 are either eternal or were immediately created as they are. 



In the case of organisms it does not free us from the same 

 conclusion, if we liken their characters to the properties of 

 matter, and imagine that there is some original endowment of 

 differences which gradually finds expression by evolution. 



If we attempt to treat the characters of organisms as if 

 they were properties of matter, we are forced to imagine 

 infinite and inconceivable ultimate units, like atoms, of which 

 the original organic matter of ancestral organisms was com- 

 posed, and it has been found necessary to endow these units 

 with qualities of persistence and definition, of will and deter- 

 mination, of power over the environment in which they reside, 

 and of judgment of the value of the to-be-attained morpho- 

 logical structure and functional activities of the organisms, 

 which in the creational idea are ascribed to the will and mind 

 of the Creator. 



Any one who is not already prejudiced against the notion 

 of God cannot fail to see in the theistic view of the Creator, in 

 which eternal will and purpose constitute the powers and poten- 

 cies back of phenomena, a more rational and satisfactory 

 theory of the universe than the materialistic view in which 

 the same powers and potencies, invisible and infinitesimal, are 

 made to be the endowments of an infinite number of undying, 

 determinant, organic units. 



Evolution does not apply to the Mode of Becoming of Chemical 

 or Physical Properties of Matter, but is the Distinctive Characteristic 

 of Organisms. In the case of chemical and physical properties, 

 as related to particular material things and on the assumption 

 that matter is not eternal, their creation can be considered only 

 as having been immediate, since our whole science of physics 



