282 THE UNIVERSE 



because they are easily electrified, and respond 

 quickly to magnetic energy. They say, with Dr. 

 Thomas Young, " There are all gradations of sub- 

 stance stretching all the way from the solid material 

 to the spiritual, and gradations of consciousness 

 from the inert mineral to the highest manifesting 

 God." And I agree with them in a sense, for the 

 consciousness in matter is electric energy, and in 

 God and man it is spirit. 



That these electric laws are intelligent, constant 

 and wonderful we have abundant proof every day of 

 our existence. Prof. Japp of the British Association 

 says : "No fortuitous concourse of atoms, even with 

 all eternity for them to clash and combine in, could 

 compass the feat of the formation of the first opti- 

 cally organic compound." This is true, for only the 

 infinite wisdom of creative law and electric energy 

 could do it. It is not fortuitous or accidental ; it is 

 in accord with nature's perfect laws of electric com- 

 binations. 



I am willing to admit that ' ' inherent selective and 

 directive force" is exhibited in organic and inorganic 

 matter. And I explain it by the laws of electro- 

 magnetism. Agnostic pantheism has no explana- 

 tion. They say that nature shows some sense and 

 intelligence; therefore nature, the world, this great 

 globe, is God. 



They quote from their great authority, Huxley, 

 who said that "Life was present potentially in mat- 

 ter when in the nebulous form and was unfolded from 

 it by the way of natural development." I am willing 

 to admit it, and to go one step further, and say it 

 was there before the nebulas was formed in the 

 electric currents of life and power, which are the first 



