Will and Guidance 155 



similar attack on Physics is of heavy 

 calibre, and his criticism cannot in general 

 be ignored as based upon inadequate ac- 

 quaintance with the principles under dis- 

 cussion ; but still his Gifford lectures raise 

 an antithesis or antagonism between the 

 fundamental laws of mechanics and the 

 possibility of any intervention whether 

 human or divine. 



If this antagonism is substantial it is 

 serious ; for Natural Philosophers will not 

 be willing to concede fundamental inaccuracy 

 or uncertainty about their recognised and 

 long-established laws of motion, when 

 applied to ordinary matter ; nor will they 

 be prepared to tolerate any the least 

 departure from the law of the conservation 

 of energy, when all forms of energy are 

 taken into account. Hence, if guidance 

 and control can be admitted into the 

 scheme by no means short of undermining 

 and refuting those laws, there may be 

 every expectation that the attitude of 

 scientific men will be perennially hostile to 



