THE VITAL AND PHYSICAL FORCES. 53 



argues that all notion of power is derived from our conscious- 

 ness of effort (a doctrine advanced as novel by later philosophers), 

 and that the existence of the powers of nature thus necessarily 

 leads us back to a mental source for them. It is to me very 

 interesting to find the two lines of argument— the one starting 

 from the correlation of the Physical, Vital, and Mental forces, 

 as indicated by objective facts ; the other from the analysis of 

 our own subjective consciousness — which, so far from being in 

 any way irreverent, only gives a new argument for the existence 

 of an Intelligent First Cause. 



From this point of view I should look upon the whole 

 Kosmos as the corporeity of the Deity, a doctrine which some 

 may think pantheistic, but which seems to me necessarily to 

 follow from that of his universal and immediate agency, which 

 I cannot but regard as the highest method of viewing his modus 

 operandi. Thus I should regard the mutual correlation of 

 mental forces as enabling one mind to act on another directly 

 or indirectly, according to the means of communication, that of 

 the Deity upon man directly, that of man upon man indirectly. 

 The correlation of the Mental and Vital forces is manifested on 

 the large scale in the phenomena of life, and the direct result of 

 the Divine agency ; on a smaller and more limited scale in the 

 mutual relations of mental and corporeal activity in man. The .- 

 correlation of the Mental and Physical is manifested in the way 

 in which man acts on external nature, and is acted upon by it, 

 through the medium of Nervous force, but more directly in the 

 phenomena of the material universe considered as the immediate 

 expression of the Divine will. 



In working out such speculations it will, of course, be very 

 difficult to avoid shocking the prejudices of some good and wise 

 people ; but I do not mind this if the philosophy of them will 

 bear a rigid examination, as I am certain that in the end they 

 will tend to render our ideas of the Divine agency more definite, 

 and at the same time to elevate our conceptions of it, by showing 

 that in every way in which we feel ourselves limited, the Deity 

 is unlimited, his mind exerting itself directly and universally in 

 every class of phenomena. 



The views indicated in the first of these letters were 



