BASIS OF ONTOLOGY. 539 
are partially comprehensible by finite human intelligence, the comprehension being fuller 
in proportion as that intelligence is more highly developed,—in such ways as an Infinite 
Intelligence would act. And as we can conceive of no other agency than Intelligence 
that would be able to assign laws to force, the conclusion is irresistible that Intelligence 
is the highest or ruling power of the Universe. An infinite Intelligence could control an 
infinite Universe, but no other conceivable form of Existence would be capable of such 
control. 
293. Many have imagined that they could conceive in some fancied necessity or fate a 
cause superior to Intelligence. But a rigid analysis would probably prove that the sup- 
posed necessity was only a characteristic of the Infinite Intelligence, in which the mass of 
mankind have always believed. For what is necessity but an attribute of rational deter- 
mination? What other ground can be given for the predication of necessity than that 
reason declares that it must be so! What our finite reason discovers as infinitely and 
eternally necessary, the Infinite Reason must have declared from all eternity. Necessity, 
as apprehended by us, is purely ideal,—perhaps the highest of all mere ideas,—and yet 
the idea is doubtless the perfect transcript of the reality. Our idea could have no exist- 
ence except in intelligence, and the reality is not conceivable as having any existence in- 
dependent of an Infinite Intelligence.* 
294. Others have supposed that Law is supreme, even Intelligence and Will being the 
results of organization, and therefore subject to the organic law. But what is this or- 
ganic law, and what possible conception can be formed of any law, independent of a law- 
giver? 
295. The vital movements are almost wholly involuntary, and are generally under the 
control of the law of vitality, which is another name for the organic law. This law, like 
Will, acts for a special purpose, and its action may often be modified, and to some extent 
controlled, by the counteraction of the human will. 
296. The same agencies (light, heat, electricity, &c.) that govern the universe in ac- 
cordance with fixed laws for fixed purposes, are also used by man to #ecomplishi: his pur- 
poses in the exercise of his will. 
297. The man to whom we become attached is the spiritual, not the physical man. 
This spiritual man controls the motions of the limbs, the organs of speech, and all the 
voluntary muscles, by his individual will. ‘The will is, therefore, their law. The law, or 
* If the Supreme were not intelligent and rational, it would be impossible to predict any result, or to trace out 
any antecedent cause. The perception of necessity is not the-perception of any blind chance or fate, but the per- 
ception of a rational conclusion or law, which could only have been originally made and eternally sustained by a 
Rational Lawgiver. 
