30 THE EEV. CANON R. B. GIKDLESTONE, M.A., ON 



room nor need left for God in the universe. But those 

 who first announced this law, did not drift to an atheistic 

 conclusion. 



Imagine if you can a fixed amount of equally dif- 

 fused homogeneous matter in its raw or primary con- 

 dition in the universe, the amount of energy in the whole 

 remaining the same now as in the beginning, still the 

 question — perhaps I ought to say the provoking question — 

 will arise, Whence came it ? Who and what first caused 

 differentiation to begin? By what marvellous fate or fortuity 

 did the varieties of the animal, vegetable and mineral 

 kingdoms spring into existence in this little planet ? and, 

 notably, hoAv do you account for those chief centres of 

 energy, human personalities? For these cannot be classified 

 with heat, light, and otlier physical forces, and when they 

 die they give no sign of being under the law of conservation 

 of energy in Siuy real sense. 



The more one speculates on these things, the more one 

 sees that conservation of energy simply means conservation 

 of physical energy, and only applies to one side of existence ; 

 the same being the case with the earlier discovery of the 

 correlation of the physical forces, and its offspring, the 

 continuity of physical force. 



The substitute for creative action is automatic action. But 

 8.utomatic action, which by-the-bye in its true sense is as 

 old as the Greek Testament, by no means dispenses with 

 preceding intelligence and force. It would be vain to put a 

 penny in the slot if there ■ were no carefully constructed 

 machinery and no chocolates within. All machinery, even 

 the machinery of the universe, is the product of intelligence 

 and of power. 



(3) This leads to a third desideratum, viz., a more full 

 discussion from a strictly scientific point of view of the 

 mental and spiritual side of human nature. 



The world has been interested if not agitated by Mr. 

 Balfour's late volume on the Foundations of Belief. With all 

 due respect to the author, I confess that he seems to shine 

 more as a critic than as a constructor. He is skilful in 

 pointing out the serious failure of "naturalism," i.e., materi- 

 alism, to satisfy the needs and demands of human nature 

 as a whole. 



I have no sympathy with him when he attacks the 

 verdict of our senses. If I mistake not, he has not even 

 touched or broached that about the senses, which makes 



