CH. 11.] ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM. 391 



of nature does, and must ever, baffle comprehension ; and 

 that, upon any hypothesis frameable by our intelligence, 

 whether theistic or non-theistic, the origination of motion 

 must remain not only incomprehensible but inconceivable. 

 Relatively to our finite power of apprehension, motion is to be 

 regarded, like matter, as eternal.^ The unthinkableness of 

 the creation or destruction of matter or motion is involved 

 in the axiom that force is persistent, which is the fundo- 

 mental axiom of all science and of Cosmic Philosophy. 

 Whether motion, considered apart from our power of appre- 

 hension, ever had a beginning or not, is a question which 

 cannot concern us as scientific thinkers. To assert that it 

 had, is to put into words a hypothesis that cannot be 

 translated into thought, and to assume Volition as its primal 

 antecedent, is to frame an additional hypothesis that is 

 essentially unverifiable. Phenomenally we know of Will 

 only as the cause of certain limited and very peculiar kinds 

 of activity displayed by the nerves and muscles of the 

 higher animals. And to argue from this that all other 

 kinds of activity are equally caused by Will, simply be- 

 cause the primal origination of motion is otherwise inex- 

 plicable, is as monstrous a stretch of assumption as can well 

 he imagined. While to contend — as many have done — that 

 because human volitions are attended by a sensation of 

 effort, there is therefore effort in each case of causation, is 

 much like identifying gravitative force with the sensation 

 of weight by which the attempt to overcome it is always 

 accompanied.^ 



1 Or — to state the same thing in another form — the possibilities of tlioiig't 

 are limited by experience ; and experipnce furnishes no data for enabling iis 

 to conceive a time, either past or future, when the Unknowable would be 

 objectively manifested to consciousness otherwise than in movements of 

 matter. But this, it should be remembered, applies solely to our powers of 

 conception. Thought is not the measure of things, and where tlie region ul 

 experience is transcended, the test of inconceivability becomes inapplicable 

 See above, vol. i. p. 11. 



• toee above, voL i. p. 167. 



