180 COSMIC FIULOSOPHY. [pt. i. 



theism to monotheism was determined hy the gradual attain- 

 ment of physical knowledge, or, in other words, by the 

 detoction of certain uniformities in the processes of nature. 

 The discovery of natural laws is the segregation of pheno- 

 mena into groups according to their relations of likeness and 

 unlikeness, attended by the disclosure of community of causa- 

 tion for the phenomena constituting each, group. After this 

 process has continued for a time, it is perceived that there 

 are different modes of causation. Phenomena, in the pro- 

 duction of which the human will is not implicated, are seen 

 to differ from those in which it is concerned, by exhibiting a 

 more conspicuous and readily detected regularity of sequence. 

 Consequently, in considering them, the conception of arbitrary 

 or capricious will is gradually excluded, and is replaced by 

 the conception of a uniform force, whose actions may be 

 foreseen, and whose effects, if harmful, may be avoided. 

 This having occurred in the case of the more familiar pheno- 

 mena, the same result eventually follows in the case of those 

 which are more remote. The ultimate phase of this process 

 characterized by the complete extrusion of volitional agenciei 

 and the universal substitution of the conception of invariable 

 sequence, becomes possible only after an immense develop- 

 ment of physical science. Volitional agencies, therefore, wert 

 not at once extruded, but were only generalized more and 

 more, and gradually separated further and further from the 

 phenomena which they were supposed to produce. A great 

 step was taken in philosophy when the Titan dynasty waa 

 dethroned, and the celestial and terrestrial provinces oJ 

 phenomena partitioned between Zeus and Poseidon. A 

 still greater step was taken when God, considered as an 

 arbitrary volitional agency, was entirely separated from the 

 universe of tolerably uniform sequences, interposing with hia 

 will only on rare occasions. This is the cruder form of mono- 

 theism, and in it the metaphysical mode of thought is very 

 conspicuous. In place of the innumerable volitional agents 



