Thoughts on Causality. 



245 



dead atoms. 1 If the force-atom is not unintelligent, it is 

 intelligent, and we have a universe with an infinitude of 

 atomic intelligences, acting, nevertheless, in infinite and 

 eternal harmony amongst themselves ; or else the universe 

 as a whole is one intelligence, and objectivity in respect to 

 it, is totally annihilated. Everything which zs, is not a 

 manifestation of the Supreme, but a part of it. Of these 

 two alternatives, the first is a more startling hypothesis 

 than that of the living monads of Leibnitz ; since these 

 were not the lodgment of ultimate cause, but subsisted 

 under it. It may be pronounced infinitely improbable, and 

 dismissed from consideration. The second alternative, 

 which identifies nature with one supreme intelligence, is 

 pantheism, the credibility of which I have no space, at pre- 

 sent, to discuss, beyond the suggestion already laid down. 2 

 The other supposition which may be made in reference 

 to the ultimate seat of energy, views it as external to 

 matter — that is, an entity of which matter is neither a part 

 nor the whole. This entity may be considered as intelli- 

 gent or unintelligent. If unintelligent, we have no cause 

 for life, volition and intelligence, more promising than 

 when we sought it from unintelligent atoms. If we suppose 

 the ultimate ground of force to be intelligent, we have an 

 adequate explanation of vital and mental phenomena in 

 the world, and an immediate and all-sufficient explanation 

 of the rational method which knits creation into a web of 

 relationships. 



This conception of supreme intelligent power, enthroned 

 at the fountain head of phenomena, and displaying its activ- 

 ity in force acting upon atoms and aggregates of matter, 



1 Tyndall : Belfast Address, pp. 68 and 87. 



Dubois-Reymond : Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens, pp. 20 and 29. 



a Helmholtz considers matter resting and inactive in itself, but yet, in 

 some strange way as animated witb varying forces. The definition implies 

 that the ultimate cause — that is, the cause of the atomic forces with which 

 matter is endowed, is something external to matter. 



