404 ACTUAL WORKING IN ORIGINAL RESEARCH. 



things appear, when profoundly investigated, to be re- 

 sults of a variable or capricious power. It is only persons 

 who are ignorant of nature and judge by the superficial 

 appearance of it, who disbelieve in law and order, and 

 believe in a variable and lawless First Cause, capable of 

 being swayed by uncertain motives. It is precisely also 

 in those subjects where we most firmly believe in the 

 existence of universal law and order, such as in mechanics 

 and in the physical and chemical sciences, that the greatest 

 advances have been made in civilisation and the welfare 

 and happiness of mankind, and the progress made has 

 been largely a consequence of that belief. It is contrary 

 to existing scientific evidence to assume natural causes 

 alone acting in the physical and chemical sciences, and 

 supernatural ones operating in the biological and mental 

 ones. There is no real line of division between living and 

 dead, mental and vital matter. 1 The artificial formation 

 of diamonds is just as much an impossibility to us in our 

 present state of ignorance as that of the simplest kind ot 

 living matter, a speck of living jelly. 



The material universe is not ruled by guess-work or 

 caprice. Neither substances nor actions spontaneously 

 create or destroy themselves ; everything that exists must 

 have a sufficient reason for its existence, and every physical 

 and chemical phenomenon must have a cause. If one 

 thing may arise without a cause, then so may another ; an 

 universe without invariable causation would be an infinite 

 chaos. The idea of cause includes that of power, because 

 all dynamic, physical, and chemical phenomena involve 

 transference of energy, and the notion of power includes 

 that of relation. The relation of cause and effect is one 

 of the most intimate known; causation means absolute 

 dependence and indissoluble uniformity of connection 

 1 See Chapter XXIII. pp. 205, 206. 



