44 



FACTS AND FANCIES 



where the one force or power supposed to un- 

 derlie all existence is a sort of God shorn of 

 personality, will, and reason. * 



The actual relations of these opposing theo- 

 ries to science cannot be better explained than 

 by a reference to the words of a leading mon- 

 ist, whose views we shall have to notice in the 

 next lecture. " If," says Haeckel, " anybody feels 

 the necessity of representing the origin of mat- 

 ter as the work of a supernatural creative force 

 independent of matter itself, I would remind 

 him that the idea of an immaterial force creat- 

 ing matter in the first instance is an article of 

 faith which has nothing to do with science. 

 Where faith begins, science ends." 



Precisely so, if only we invert the last sen- 

 tence and say, " Where science ends, faith be- 

 gins." It is only by faith that we know of any 

 force, or even of the atoms of matter them- 

 selves, and in like manner it is " by faith we 

 know that the creative ages have been consti- 

 tuted by the word of God."* The only differ- 

 ence is that the monist has faith in the potency 

 of nothing to produce something, or of some- 

 thing material to exist for ever and to acquire 

 at some point of time the power spontaneously 



* Epistle to Hebrews, xi. 3. 



Nil 



