230 Thoughts on Causality. 



we are still uncertain that they represent realities as they 

 are. Universal belief again affirms that they do ; and yet 

 there is room for doubt. 



If we trust the indications of the shifting phenomena, 

 the world of realities is the theatre of perpetual movement, 

 change and transformation. We find rooted in universal 

 belief a conviction that all these changes are severally the 

 results of appropriate causes; and that the realities them- 

 selves are equally effects of adequate causation. It is a 

 law of mind to look upon every phenomenon as an effect, 

 and to couple effect with cause. It is the province of science 

 to catalogue phenomena, to classify them, to note their re- 

 lations of antecedence and sequence and formulate laws ; 

 and from observed uniformities of sequence, to lift the 

 veil from the future and the past. It is the province of 

 philosophy to pass beyond the phenomenon and inquire, 

 not what is its antecedent, but what is its cause ; to pass 

 from immediate and accessible causes to remote ones, and 

 from these to ultimate, efficient causation. Philosophy, 

 when it has attained this limit, becomes theology. The- 

 ology is the granary in which the fruitage of science and 

 philosophy is garnered. Religion is the activity of that 

 department of our nature which feels its ground and sanc- 

 tion in the supreme Reality in which the successes of 

 science, philosophy and theology converge. 



Though searchers after truth may be ranged as scientists, 

 philosophers and theologians, it is seldom the case that 

 either shuts himself closely in his own field. The scien- 

 tist, from phenomena induces laws ; and from the postu- 

 lates of his own mind deduces causes, such as gravitation, 

 affinity, electricity. The modern philosopher combines 

 the data furnished in reason with the conclusions yielded 

 by science ; and the theologian pursues all paths and all 

 methods which seem to tend toward a last solution of the 

 mystery of being and events. 



