164 THE UNIVERSE 



Mr. Spencer has described a general indefinite 

 process as "the redistribution of matter and mo- 

 tion," but he has revealed no natural law, or funda- 

 mental explanation of natural phenomena. Every 

 important question leads him to a stone wall which 

 he does not try to scale or penetrate, but labels 

 the "Unknowable." 



A learned philosopher who has spent his life en- 

 deavoring to instruct others should not fall back 

 into the convenient ditch of the "unknowable." 



He says : " What is it that holds together the parts 

 of which this ultimate atom may be imagined to 

 consist? The only answer is a cohesive force." But 

 he does not attempt to explain what that cohesive 

 force is, while I undertake to say it is magnetic 

 cohesion under the law of electro-magnetism, which 

 holds aggregations of atoms in organic affinity, pro- 

 ducing visible form and substance. 



He says : " Force is the ultimate of ultimates. Mat- 

 ter and motion are only different manifestations of 

 this unknowable force." 



This is making force usurp the place of Deity. 

 Force is a servant, not a master a tool and not an 

 ultimate cause. Force without intelligence back of 

 it is anarchy and ruin; it is chaos and not a cos- 

 mos. God is a scientific necessity. 



The ultimate of ultimates is mind or spirit the 

 eternal intelligent spirit of Deity and man. 



1 accept the scientific postulate that the conserva- 

 tion of energy and the correlation of forces affirm, 

 first, that there is but one kind of energy or force in 

 the physical universe ; but I go further and contend 

 electric energy is that force. Second, that, like mat- 

 ter energy cannot be created or destroyed. Third, 



