222 



Thoughts on Causality. 



In studying these latest emanations from the evolutionist 

 school of science, I have been deeply impressed by four ob- 

 servations. 1. The great learning and scientific acumen of 

 their authors. 2. Their strict adherence to the study of 

 material phenomena, and their customary reticence upon 

 questions which receive no direct light from physical observa- 

 tions. 3. The wide spread popular misapprehension of 

 these men in respect to the subjects of their reticence, and 

 of the bearing of their scientific opinions upon those sub- 

 jects. 4. The existence of latent fallacies affecting in com- 

 mon, to some extent, many of their fundamental positions. 



With the view of eliciting into prominence the common 

 fundamental principles of such writers, and applying to 

 them what I believe to be correct philosophic criteria of 

 universal thinking, I begin by presenting the line of reason- 

 ing embodied in the address of Professor Tyndall. 



This address is a panoramic survey of the history of 

 thought and speculation on the origin and substratum of 

 phenomena, and concludes that, so far as the inquiries of 

 science are concerned, there has always been manifest a 

 tendency, in leading minds, to rest, as an ultimate datum, 

 upon the proposition that atoms and molecules exist, and 

 their interaction is the cause of all material and mental 

 phenomena, yet the author repeatedly recognizes the ne- 

 cessity of admitting the existence of some inscrutable 

 energy farther back than the remotest cause attainable by 

 human research. 



The first efforts at reasoning traced events to superhuman 

 agency exerted by numerous beings called gods, but the 

 conception of whom was strictly anthropomorphic. Science 

 was born in the desire to find fixed and orderly energies 

 with which to replace the capricious wills of the primitive 

 gods. While yet in its cradle, science manifested a con- 

 sciousness of its mission, in attacking and destroying the 

 contemporany religious faiths and pretensions. In seeking 

 the causes of phenomena, from below, instead of above, 



