49 



of the origin of the universe is beyond the range of Science. 

 Science indicates the necessity of something — some self- 

 existent, infinite, originating Power, above and beyond matter. 

 Herbert Spencer has put the case very forcibly : — " Here then, 

 respecting the nature of the universe, we seem committed to 

 certain unavoidable conclusions. The objects and actions 

 surroundiDg us, not less than the phenomena of our own con- 

 sciousness, compel us to ask a cause ; in our search for a 

 cause, we discover no resting-place until we arrive at the 

 hypothesis of a First Cause ; and we have no alternative but to 

 regard this First Cause as infinite and absolute." * The 

 inferential teaching of Science, as Herbert Spencer and others 

 admit, is not exhausted in a merely negative result. It reveals 

 in nature everywhere the existence of what is now technically 

 C'dWedi force. However far its observations are carried back, 

 force cannot be eliminated or dispensed with. It is involved 

 in the motion of a grain of sand as fully as in the circling of 

 the spheres ; and if Science here attempt to pass beyond the 

 range of sense, and to theorise about force existing in atoms, 

 we follow it and say. You are but shifting the mystery, and 

 we press the natural question. What put force in the atoms ? 

 Whence came it ? Thus we drive the scientist back and back 

 through every province of his own legitimate domain ; we 

 drive him back, too, through those regions of hazy theory and 

 dim speculation in which he loves to expatiate, until at last 

 by an inexorable logic we compel him to admit, as Herbert 

 Spencer shows, an Author of force. Tyndall has virtually 

 admitted this in his lecture on Grystallirie and Molecular 

 Forces : — " And, if you will allow me a moment's diversion, I 

 would say that I have stood in the springtime and looked 

 upon the sprouting foliage, the grass, and the flowers, and 

 the general joy of opening life. And in my ignorance of it 

 all I have asked myself whether there is no power, being, or 

 thing, in the universe whose knowledge of that of which I 

 am so ignorant is greater than mine. I have asked myself, 

 can it be possible that man's knowledge is the greatest know- 

 ledge — that man's life is the highest life ? My friends, the 

 profession of that Atheism with which I am sometimes so 

 lightl}'- charged would, in my case, be an impossible answer to 

 this question." Now what is the possible, the certain answer, 

 to this touching cry of an exponent of, if not believer in, 

 " Atheistic materialism " ? It may thus be taken from the 



* First Frinciples, p. 38. 

 VOL. xviir. E 



