IS EVOLUTION GODLESS. 549 



to say about causation ? It is important to be borne in mind that the word cause is 

 employed in literature in two senses. By cause the scientist means only a uniform 

 antecedent. But every one immediately understands that mere antecedence is in- 

 sufficient. Some efficiency must be exerted in the preceding term which passes over 

 into the following term. There must be a bond connecting the two which is more 

 than simple successiveness. This is is the other conception of cause. This is the 

 conception of real and only cause. The scientific conception of cause is merely 

 that of uniform antecedence among material phenomena, and is therefore not a 

 conception of true efficient causation at all. 



Now, all real efficiency originates in will. Our own experiences teach that 

 every result attained in the realm of human activities proceeds from human voli- 

 tion. Tools, machinery, the elements of nature, — these are only intermedia 

 which will employs for the accomplishment of its ends. All the eminent authori- 

 ties concur that the same conclusion must be applied to events in the natural 

 world. All its phenomena are the products of some causal volition. 



But the mere fact of volitional causation implies much more. The exercise 

 of will implies a real being, possessing such an attribute. The effects to be pro- 

 duced must be first conceived or apprehended. This is an act of intelligence. 

 The suitable conditions must be chosen ; appropriate instrumentalities selected. 

 These are other acts of intelligence. The premeditated effect must be desired ; 

 there must be a motive for producing it. Motive and desire belong to the emo- 

 tional nature. Finally, the exertion of will for the effectuation of the result com- 

 pletes the circle of attributes constituting personality, — that is, separate, self sus- 

 tained existence. Intellect, sensibility, and will are the three moments of our own 

 personal being. 



Now, to apply this analysis to the organic changes which sometimes take 

 place in animals and plants, we must keep clearly before the attention the dis- 

 crimination between the fact of an evolutionary mode of succession, the conditions 

 under which it is effected, the iftstrumentalities employed in the effectuation, and 

 the cause whose efficiency employs the instrumentalities under the conditions to 

 make a given effect a fact of nature. It is plain that when an animal comes into 

 the possession of a modified structure that structure has grown. The result has 

 b.en attained through the action of the growing forces. A denser covering of fur 

 may have come into existence in connection with the advent of a colder climate. 

 Thp change in the climate is the condition to which the organism becomes adapt- 

 ed, and the changed action of the vital forces produces the adaptation. Eui the 

 physiological activities within the animal are themselves only instrumental. 

 They are merely physical activities directed to certain ends. They do a work not 

 planned by the organs. These facts point to the existence of some real cause yet 

 undiscovered. It must be an immaterial cause, since the deepest scrutiny of our 

 microscopes discloses only matter engaged in the physical activities just referred 

 to. ' It must be an intelligent cause, since it selects and builds according to in- 

 lelligible plans. Only intellect performs such works. Manifestly, then, some in- 

 telligent and immaterial cause employs the physiological forces to build the or- 



