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state which we call Will." It is the name we give to our own self-conscious 

 exercise of power. We know, and can conceive of, no other form of Force. 

 Constrained by a law of our nature, (that law which, uncorrected by our 

 higher reason, suggests to us the notion of physical causation ) ; to refer every 

 phenomenon bo a cause, we can do no otherwise than suppose, in the back- 

 ground of Nature, a power producing her appearances. This power we must 

 needs conceive of as cognate with the only form of power of which we have 

 experience. Thus it comes to pass, that the unsophisticated intellect must see 

 in Nature the expression of a Mind ; and suppose beneath the veil of fleeting 

 phenomena the enduring force of a living Will. Force is but the meta- 

 physical idea of Will transferred to the field of physics. Force is will supposed 

 in action upon matter. The conception is the indispensable sub-stratum of all 

 physical speculation ; yet the origin of the idea, as of those of Substance, 

 Space, and Time, is hyper-physical. I do not say that there is logical ground 

 for the belief that all phenomena must bear the same kind of efficient cause 

 with one type of Force which our narrow human experience makes known to 

 us ; or even for the belief that all phenomena must have a cause. These beliefs 

 lie deeper than logic. They are laws of that mental constitution on which 

 Logic itself depends. 



How mind can act on Matter must remain to us an impenetrable mystery. 

 But, when called upon to choose between Mind and Matter for the origin and 

 motive power of the universe, we can be at no loss ; for Matter we must think 

 of as inert ; Mind, on the other hand, we are conscious of as active. When, 

 however, we attempt to realize to ourselves the mode of the Divine action in the 

 Universe of matter, we at once encounter a great difficulty of conception. 

 Are we to suppose a distinct volition for every phenomenon ; and to call in 

 the Divine power to produce a spark, or form a rain-drop 1 We shrink from 

 the idea as irreverent, if not impossible. On the other hand, suppose His 

 volitions quarrel, and Himself, in Nature, regardless of particulars, and what 

 becomes of that Providence without which not a sparrow falls, and by which 

 the very hairs of our head are numbered 1 Nor can we escape the difficulty by 

 the denial of God's immanency in Nature. It is idle to interpose between 

 Him and His universe the machinery of secondary causes. We have seen the 

 fallacy of imputing power to the temporary fictions of scientific generalization, 

 as if gravitation, or electricity, were capable of being regarded as real agents. 

 Driven from our refuge in the sophistry of so-called material causation, nothing 

 is left but the world of spirit. In former ages there was no difficulty in the 

 conception of intermedial agencies of a spiritual kind. In the Talmud a special 

 angel is assigned to every star, and to every element. But the day for such 

 fancies is gone by. In my judgment one difficulty is irremovable ; for it 

 arises from the natural limitation of our faculties. We view all things as 

 existing in space or time. We know not that such is the mode of the 

 Almighty's thought. Nay, rather, we believe that, to the great I AM, Past 

 and Future are merged in an eternal Present : that to Him there is, physically, 

 neither great nor small : neither far nor near : that, in the infinite sphere of 

 His Providence the centre is everywhere. But though our faith be that He 

 reconciles the claims of General and Particular in his boundless universe ; and, 

 whilst maintaining the grand and beautiful uniformities of Cosmical law, that 

 His tender mercies are over all His works, we needs must own, that to 

 comprehend, or even to imagine, how this can be, transcends our feeble 

 faculties. 



The way is now open for us to consider more precisely the modern aspect 

 of Physical Science, in its organic branches. This has appeared to many 

 leading scientific minds highly unfavourable to those arguments from particular 



