390 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. iil 



• 

 their noiimenal cause. At the beginning of this work it was 

 shown that the objective reality underlying the phenomena 

 of heat, light, actinism, and mechanical vibration, cannot be 

 held to resemble one of these sets of phenomena more than 

 another, and accordingly cannot be held to resemble any of 

 them. And this conclusion, thus forced upon us by concrete 

 examples, is the only one consistent with what we know of 

 knowledge. Obviously the phenomena cannot be held to be 

 like the objective reality without ignoring the circumstance 

 that the mind is itself a factor in the process of cognition. 

 Now the Cartesians, with more insight into the exigencies of 

 the case than is shown by Mr. Adam, unflinchingly asserted 

 that phenomenal effects are like noumenal causes, — that 

 whatever is in the subjective conception is also in the 

 objective reality. As a proposition in psychology, this is a 

 denial of the relativity of knowledge. As a canon of logic, 

 this is the proclamation of the subjective method. Hence, 

 though the metaphysician and the theologian may adopt an 

 anthropomorphic hypothesis founded upon such an argument, 

 it is impossible for a scientific philosopher to do so. 



The attempt to establish the anthropomorphic hypothesis 

 by means of the volitional theory of causation is, from the 

 scientific point of view, equally futile. From first to last, as 

 was fully demonstrated in the chapter on Causation, the 

 argument of the volitionists is made up of pure assumptions. 

 From the unwarranted ontological postulate that Will is a 

 noumenal or efficient cause of muscular action in animals, 

 it proceeds, by a flagrant non sequitur, to the equally un- 

 warranted conclusion that Will is the noumenal or efficient 

 cause of all the dynamic phenomena of the universe, and 

 must therefore be the First Cause. Volition being asserted 

 to be the only source whence motion can originate, it is 

 affirmed that, save on the hypothesis of a Supreme Will, the 

 activity of natiire baffles comprehension. The reply of the 

 scientific critic is that, in an ultimate analysis, the activity 



