THE NATURAL AND THE ARTIFICIAL. 181 



compared with the eternity of the Infinite, may not have 

 reached into the winter before and behind us ! Indeed, 

 there are indications, in the impossibihty of accounting at 

 present for the source of the sun's heat and other problems, 

 that the hxws of heat and Hght observed by us may 

 not always have applied. 



Seeing then that no force can act without determination 

 or direction and that this ultimately can depend neither 

 on matter or force, we are driven to what after all is the only 

 rational conclusion, and that is that determination is the 

 result of mind, and if we ask whose mind, the answer can 

 only be the mind of the Infinite. 



Professor Tait reaches this conclusion when he says, after 

 elaborate arguments extending over hundreds of pages, 

 " The determination of all things can come from God alone." 



Lord Brougham says, '• The evidence for the existence of 

 mind is more certain and more irrefragable than for that of 

 matter." 



Dugald Stewart sums his arguments up thus : — 



1. Every effect implies a cause. 



2. Every combination of means to ends implies intelligence 

 (i.e., mind). 



Let us then cease to attribute this intelligence to nature, 

 as for instance, "Nature's cunning contrivance stores up coal 

 and reveals it to men when needed." 



This nature is a fiction and a fancy and is only such 

 a favourite inasmuch as it offers a superficial escape from the 

 necessity of recognizing a supreme Being. The reality is a 

 great creative mind of omnipotent power; above, but in 

 sympathy with his whole creation : in other words, God. 



That mind is the cause of force-action is, however, 

 denied; for we find such men as Tyndall {Fragments of 

 Science) saying in a comparison between the pyramids and 

 rock crystals, "While the blocks of Eg^'pt were laid dowii 

 by a power external to themselves, the molecular blocks of 

 salt (matter be it remembered, whose first quality is inertia) 

 were self-posited; being fixed in their places by the forces 

 with which they act on each other." He here advances the 

 amazing idea of a self-determining power as the attribute 

 of a molecule. 



Dr. Nicholson, in a paper read here some time ago, says 

 that force is or may be an affection of matter, an idea to my 

 mind equally confused and confusing. 



Herbert Spencer takes the other side and sees nothing in 



