420 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 



and that it has proved itself inadequate to deal with the complicated system of 

 chemical facts. At best it stands as the x in hypothetical formula, but must not 

 be recognized as a fundamental fact. 



Until this settled we may be permitted to enjoy two things : One is that we 

 are, and the other is that one of our attributes is common sense. This quality 

 tells us that we can only observe phenomena and reason from them. To our know- 

 ing we find matter as the medium of all expression in nature. We find it unor- 

 ganized and organized, as we term the two states — or living and dead. If the 

 ultimate of what we call living is unknowable, the fact is known, and we must 

 deal with it as we know it. Science has helped us to the last tangible condition 

 of organized matter in bioplasm, and traced for us the process of growth. But 

 it has not been able to seize the union of life with it, or to know how it is vital- 

 ized. Its methods have utterly failed to produce the vital substance, or to gen- 

 erate anything living. As far as we know, matter is not intelligent, it does not 

 think and it cannot know. The intelligent principle must then be higher than 

 matter, as it uses it. The least we can do is to recognize this duality. We can- 

 not call it chance, for there is no element of chance in order, purpose, persist- 

 ence and duration. It cannot be matter in motion by virtue of its material forces 

 alone — for this is simply in logical desperation inventing perpetual motion, a 

 recognized physical impossibility, or as one writer has it, producing a machine to 

 lay an egg that will hatch. 



We may as well lay up our yardsticks, our scales, our blow pipes, our test 

 tubes and microscopes, and start where -only the human intellect is capable of 

 starting from — God. After all our theories, systems and philosophies, this is the 

 only true and universal working hypothesis. All that is needed from this pre- 

 mise is to start right — or speaking scientifically, to interpret nature from her facts. 

 Then our conception of the great cause will grow in harmonious and widening 

 knowledge. If, as the world has sO largely done in the past, we start with a self- 

 imagined God, denying all facts in nature that conflict with that ideal, we must 

 end just where science found denial of such a God imperative. But we must 

 not imitate its error and supplant him by another self-conceived hypothesis as to 

 the nature of things. Here, in these assumptions, of both sides, as to the great 

 principle in nature, has been the mistake of the ages — the cause of all the so-called 

 atheism, infidelity and materialism of the world. We find out what man is by 

 what he does, what he says, and by the logic of his action. We do not form an 

 idea of the man and then ignore the lesson of his acts, reject what he says, or set 

 aside the logic of his conduct. If we do so we simply find that we have mis- 

 taken the man. Let us learn of God by like methods — the investigation of 

 nature, its laws, phenomena and uses — and we shall find him in harmony with 

 all. And what is of supreme importance to us, ourselves also in harmony. 



The primal entity in the universe is intelligence — we call it spirit. It is su- 

 perior to matter because matter is used by it. Our methods are inadequate to 

 compass its source, but we may learn its purpose. We simply know it is, through 

 our own conciousness, and that it controls and acts through our own organism. And 



