THE ORIGIN OF MAN 205 



believe so. Complete cessation of force is incred- 

 ible. Force is not abolished, it is merely redistri- 

 buted. God does not die ; He is " the same 

 yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." Behind the 

 force is the Conscious Will, but even its manifes- 

 tations in the phenomena of matter seem eternal. 



Let us see what the mighty mind of Herbert 

 Spencer thought on the subject. In a magnificent 

 passage he says : — 



"This rhythm of evolution and dissolution, 

 completing itself during short periods in small 

 aggregates, and in the vast aggregates distributed 

 through space completing itself in periods which 

 are immeasurable by human thought, is, so far as 

 we can see, universal and eternal, each alternating 

 phase of the process predominating, now in this 

 region of space and now in that, as local conditions 

 determine. All these phenomena, from their great 

 features even to their minutest details, are natural 

 results of the persistence of force under the forms 

 of matter and motion. Given these as distributed 

 through space, and their quantities being unchange- 

 able either by increase or decrease, there inevitably 

 result the continuous redistribution distinguishable 

 as evolution and dissolution, as well as those special 

 traits above enumerated. That which persists^ un- 

 changing in quantity^ but ever changing in form^ under 

 these sensible appearances which the universe presents 



