CH. II.] ANTHROPOMORPHIG THEISM. 387 



cause of steam, he maintains the likeness of the cause 

 to its effect, on the ground that both are in a state of 

 molecular agitation ! The mental confusion which resulted 

 in this extraordinary statement, is still more explicitly re- 

 vealed in the assertion that " heat is like steam, as being 

 both physical objects." So, then, we get some conception ot 

 the kind of science with which anthropomorphism is prac- 

 tically compatible. Heat, it seems, is a physical object in 

 a state of molecular agitation ! ! The ordinary physicist will 

 certainly object that heat, being the state of molecular agi- 

 tation, can hardly be called, with propriety, the physical 

 object. And the logician will add that, even if it could be 

 so called, an argument would hardly be thought convincing 

 which should rest upon the alleged resemblance of a billiard- 

 table to a rhinoceros — yet these are both physical objects. 

 Mr. Adam is equally unhappy in his answer to Mr. Mill's 

 humorous criticism of Descartes. Parodying the celebrated 

 maxim, — Si enimponamus aliquid in idea reperiri quod non 

 fuerit in ejus causa, hoc igitur hahet a nihilo, Mr. Mill 

 observes that " if there be pepper in the soup, there must be 

 pepper in the cook who made it, since otherwise the pepper 

 would be without a cause." Mr. Adam's reply savours 

 strongly of mediaeval realism. The cook, he says, is not 

 indeed the efficient cause of the pepper, but the cook's 

 intelligence is the efficient cause of the intelligence displayed 

 in the mixture of the ingredients of the soup — so that even 

 here the cause is like the effect ! Comment is not needed. 

 Human ingenuity is indeed pushed to the limit of its 

 tether, when by a play upon words it tries to liken a 

 physical combination of salt, pepper, and meat-juice to an 

 intellectual coordination of experiences. 



Apart from these ill-chosen and ill-managed examples, 

 the Cartesian argument, as modified by Mr. Adam, appears 

 to stand as follows : — When a physical event, such as the 

 pulling of a trigger, is followed by another physical event, 



c c 2 



