SCIENCE 377 



latter circumstances would demand a cause for their being 

 such as they might happen to be, even if such a body had 

 existed eternally in an eternal universe. Everything then 

 which can be known not to have a sufficient cause of its 

 existence within itself must be due to some cause or causes 

 external to it. Only something which is absolutely simple, 

 indivisible, and eternal, can escape from this law of uni- 

 versal causation. This perception of the need of a cause 

 is not the result of a mere negative impotence to conceive 

 otherwise, but is a positive perception, as the reader may 

 soon see for himself if he will examine into his own mind. 

 Let him think of a stone peculiarly shaped, and then see 

 whether his intellect tells him plainly and positively that 

 some unknown cause or other must have determined its 

 peculiar shape, or whether his mind is a mere blank 

 with respect to it. 



The idea of a cause is closely connected with the 

 conception of " power " or " force " ideas generated 

 doubtless by our consciousness of our own power to 

 think or act and by our active exercise of those powers. 

 But the idea of " power " is a primary ultimate idea 

 which cannot be resolved into other more fundamental 

 or elementary conceptions. If the reader doubts this, 

 let him try whether he can himself so resolve it. We 

 never of course see the " power " itself which is thus 

 exercised. If we strike a billiard ball with a cue we see 

 the cue and the ball, the blow and its effects. But we 

 can never see the influence itself which the cue com- 

 municates ' } for it is invisible as well as intangible. But 

 though our senses cannot perceive it, our intellect can, and 

 there is one instance, at least, wherein .the inflow and 

 action of causation is distinctly perceptible to us. This 

 is our perception of the inflow, of the influence, of 

 motives upon our will. When we resolve, from some 



