246 



Thoughts on Causality. 



does not differ, so far as this qualification goes, from the 

 conceptions set forth by Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall and 

 Dubois-Reymond. Organization, like crystallization, flows 

 from an impulse imparted to material atoms. 



Now, let us look at the significance of this po'sition. 

 The whole range of molecular activities proceeds from the 

 exertion of intelligent activity from without. That is, 

 wherever and whenever those activities exist, there such 

 energy is exerted. If molecular attraction and repulsion, 

 which number organization amongst their results, are but 

 force exerted from without by supreme, intelligent cause, 

 thou such cause has been active, not alone at the beginning 

 of existence, but through the whole tale of molecular activi- 

 ties since the world began ; and continues to act in the 

 myriad phenomena of daily observation. The only alter- 

 native to this sweeping conclusion is that which contem- 

 plates supreme cause as exerting only an initial energy, 

 the currents of which sweep through infinite years and 

 infinite existence. This would imply that the molecular 

 forces of the present are either exerted by dead matter or 

 are not original, but simply transmitted forces. The first 

 supposition is contrary to the premise. The second is the 

 view commonly entertained ; and it resolves the universe 

 into a dead mechanism. There are grave difficulties which 

 oppose it. First) the molecular activities of today are uni- 

 versally believed to be identical in nature with those which 

 have always been manifest in matter; and hence, if the 

 first motions were imparted by intelligent being, all are. 

 Secondly, we have no knowledge or room to conjecture that 

 molecular force has undergone any change since the morn- 

 ing of material existence. Thirdly, it is out of harmony 

 with the facts of the moral consciousness to posit supreme 

 causation at a point so remote from the present. Fourthly, 

 the molecular forces are probably one; this is the demand 

 of philosophy and the foreshadowed verdict of science. 

 The atoms also, by the general admission of physicists, are 



