AN APOLOGY FOR NATURE. 61S 



Philosophy, which is a co-ordination of all science, has taught us the true sphere 

 of science and the impotency of the human mind in dealing with subjects be- 

 yond this sphere. Science is limited to proximate causes Teleology here finds 

 itself a trespasser. "First causes" are born of mental weakness, and are used 

 but to cover a vacuity of thought. The mind cannot think beyond the condition- 

 ed, and any term borrowed from the conditioned applied to the absolute is a con- 

 tradiction and contains the germs of its own destruction. The moment we pred- 

 icate change, succession, time, thought, number, relation, will, etc. of the Infi- 

 nite, that moment we make it less than this by reducing it to finite comprehen- 

 sion. Thus, a recent writer defending miracles says : " Prayer effects a change 

 at the first link through God himself, and thus a corresponding change through 

 the entire chain." A " first link," a last effect, intermediate motion, wrought in 

 time and circumscribed in space! As a full complement to the thought we only 

 need to add an anthropomorphic God, and the hypothesis is extremely simple. 

 Given facts to support it, and we might allow that it had scientific worth ; but we 

 would never allow that it in any way approached the depth of an ultimate solu- 

 tion. Beyond this being circumscribed in time and space, we would be tempted 

 to erect a greater. 



Within late years philosophy has taken gigantic strides. The great discovery 

 of the conservation and correlation of force has wrought a revolution in the 

 thoughts of men. The persistence of force, and the indestructibility of matter is 

 the fulcrum on which logic has placed its lever to raise man into something like 

 a "ational being. The energy of the universe is a fixed quantity. It may change 

 i. place, or change in mode, but in all changes it exacts equivalent for equiva- 

 i Every event is the product and recompounding of the changing energy of 

 iing events. There is never a broken link in the chain, and never a termi- 

 nat cause. How can we, as Scientists, claim causation for anything if we eman- 

 cipate the entire realm of volition from its domination? The force of the will is 

 a species of catalysis that liberates the stored energy of the system. A keg of 

 dynamite in front of a loaded cannon, connected with a fuse, and this in contact 

 with a piece of dry phosphorus, can be made to liberate an almost incalculable 

 energy by simply a breath of warm air. Like this, the will is moved by feeble 

 causes, and liberates energy apparently out of proportion to it cause, but is 

 never uncaused. The direction of all changes is in the line of least resistance. 

 Man has no will superior to this law. Spirit, spontaneity, and uncaused causes, 

 are, in the light of modern science, mere fictions. It is a demonstrable scientific 

 fact that every effort of thought or will has its mechanical equivalent. The 

 thought we think, if not identical with, is at least dependent on the energy we 

 derive from our food, and is measurable in these terms. Hence the will or 

 thought of man has no power over Nature that Nature has not previously given. 

 Or, as the poet says : 



Nature is made better by no mean 

 But Nature makes that mean ; — 



