GROUNDS AND CONSEQUENCES OF EVOLUTION. 353 



tissue? These are the bottom questions, the solution of 

 which possesses the highest interest for theology, and 

 indeed for every seeker after fundamental truth. We do 

 not propose here to enter into any argument ; but for 

 our part, it seems perfectly clear that the efficient cause 

 of physiological changes, though active in the organism, 

 is metaphysically objective to the organism in which they 

 are revealed. Our conclusion is grounded, first, on our 

 necessary conception of efficient cause; secondly, on the 

 discernment reflected in the mode of activity of physi- 

 ological causes. Efficient, that is, primitive, original, 

 real, causation is the direction of adequate efficiency, 

 through appropriate instrumentalities (if needed), toward 

 a preconceived and desiderated result. If any supposed 

 cause acts in any other way, then it is itself an effect, 

 or an instrument, or a condition, and the real cause re- 

 mains to be sought. If physiological force does not thus 

 act, then, in tracing results to such force, we have not 

 found their cause. Of such nature may be the " causes " 

 with which science deals, but they are not rational causes. 

 In this case we have to seek for the volition and precon- 

 ception and motive back of physiological force. But if 

 physiological force does thus act, then volition and pre- 

 conception and motive are revealed in every vital change. 

 Thus we argue, even when force acts without adapt- 

 iveness. But vital forces act with reference to external 

 conditions, and with reference to ideal concepts. Here 

 is double proof, then, of intellectual discernments. What- 

 ever results, therefore, are produced by the slow, perpetual 

 activities of physiological forces, conditioned, to whatever 

 extent, by the environment, are the results of an ever- 

 present, discerning efficiency ; and the more we see the 

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