THE METAPHYSICS OF SCIENCE. 381 



butes which characterize a demiurge. But if we say force 

 is an entity which produces results, what is the means 

 by which it produces them? Are not all results produced 

 by force, and is not our reasoning thus reduced to the 

 proposition that the entity force employs force to produce 

 results? This proposition is unintelligible, and shows that 

 the conception of force as an entity is absurd. Force is 

 an attribute. 



But if force must be conceived as an attribute, what 

 is the nature of its subject? What is it which exerts 

 or manifests force? To say that the attribute force exerts 

 itself is to make it both attribute and subject. Something 

 which is not force, but which is capable of exerting force, 

 is therefore necessarily implied in the conception of force. 

 Is matter the subject? Then, first, it is a subject which 

 thinks, and selects, and purposes; for the results of force 

 are thoughtful, and selective, and purposive, and matter 

 does thus possess a " power and potency " of psychic results. 

 But, secondly, we are not certain that matter possesses a 

 special subjective nature. We only know matter phe- 

 nomenally, and it may easily be that phenomena constitute 

 all there is of matter in itself. Yet phenomena are mani- 

 festations of something possessing the power to produce 

 them. The phenomena which we cognize as matter are 

 manifestations of force. If there be no subject-matter 

 there must be some other subject revealing itself in the 

 phenomena, which we group under the designation of 

 matter. There must be somewhere a matter-subject. We 

 are driven, then, to the recognition of an intelligent sub- 

 ject as the ground of the attribute of force, manifesting 

 its activities in the being of what we call matter, as well 

 as in the changes which are impressed upon matter. 



