282 REV. H. J. CLARKE 
10. Following, then, the clue which may be thus perceived, 
we trace up the heterogeneous, in all examples of the kind 
just specified, to a point at which (if for a moment we put out 
of view that cause which, being eternal, is absolutely original) 
our consciousness assures us we have reached its source; and 
here an operation of which we have immediate intuition, and 
which is too simple either to need or to admit interpretation, 
discloses to us its origination, and, as I cannot doubt, reveals, 
so far as in the nature of things such a revelation is possible, the 
fundamental principle of Evolution. An unstable equilibrium, 
even 1f it is to be assumed, still fails to account ‘either for its 
own existence or for its disturbance; but in the stirring of 
that spontaneous energy within itself of which Mind is con- 
scious, and which it is utterly incapable of representing to 
itself as separable from consciousness—in that action in 
which it recognises something different from a mere phase in 
the operation of persistent force—in that peculiar kind of 
movement which the verb to will denotes, it perceives, for a 
species of evolution it is intimately acquainted with, an 
unmistakable point of departure. ‘The perception, it is true, 
takes place in a mind whose existence presupposes antecedent 
conditions, whose power, however exercised, is. at all times 
dependent upon their cause, and whose products are only 
forms assumed by material already provided, are nothing 
more, in fact, than contrived situations, or, so to speak, 
samples of manipulation. But these considerations, it 1s 
plain, are by no means grounds for suspecting that the clue 
we have been following has led us astray; for nothing 
whatever forbids the conception of an absolute power of 
origination, a power which, instead of finding any of the con- 
ditions it was to fulfil in its working, determined them all, the 
contributions they were severally to make to the complete 
result being all comprehended in an Eternal Idea. Our 
immediate consciousness of volitional action involves the 
ability to conceive an ideal freedom of origination, and thus 
philosophically to recognise as such an Original Cause. If in 
the conception thence formed any defect can be detected, let 
it be pointed out, and let a preferable conception be suggested 
and named. If this cannot be done, and if it cannot be 
alleged that any intellectual requirement has been left 
unsatisfied, then let it be acknowledged that Evolution has 
been tracked to its source, and discovered to be a stream of 
manifested thought issuing from the hidden spring of an 
Eternal Mind, revealing ever more and more the riches of a 
manifold wisdom in association with adequate prolative power, 
and still widening and deepening as it flows. 
