THE ORIGIN OF FORCE. 



By Stephen C. Hutchins. 

 [Read before the Albany Institute, Nov. 18, 1879 ] 



In reflecting upon the so-called conflicts between Science and Re- 

 ligion, it has seemed to me that they arise piimarily from want of a 

 common starting point; and that if an agreement could be had with 

 regard to the beginning of things, great advantage w^ould be 

 gained. Mankind ought to be willing to see through the eyes of 

 those who see clearest and with the keenest vision. When I look 

 up to the blue vault above, I do not see there all that the astrono- 

 mer sees. If I then deny the existence of that which is perceived 

 by him, I simply expose my own ignorance, without in the slightest 

 degree invalidating the evidence upon which the facts' perceived 

 by him rest for proofs of their existence. If the world will 

 only recognize the truth, therefore, that that which is seen by 

 specialists who have exhausted human power in a given field must 

 necessarily be true, eveu if not perceived to be true by others, and 

 if then it will harmonize these truths in one rounded whole, it will 

 possess the entire sphere of truth. I regard it, therefore, as not 

 inappropriate, in a society largely devoted to scientific inquiry, to 

 endeavor to find this common starting point, in order that we may 

 the more readily harmonize conflicting views in matters of the 

 gravest concern, by accepting the aftirmations of all competent in- 

 vestigators in all fields of inquiry, and rejecting all mere negations 

 not based on scientific examinations. 



We live in a universe propelled and sustained by Force. If, in the 

 spirit of scientific inquiry, the origin of Force can be ascertained, we 

 may trace its manifestations from their simplest forms to their pre- 

 sent wondrous complex development, in such a way as always to 

 preserve full-orbed truth in all its harmonious cone rd, and with- 

 out doing violence to anything except the crude negations of incom- 

 petent critics. 



The author of Genesis tells us that " in the beginning God fashioned 

 the heavens and the earth." 



The phrase heavens and earth is phenomenal, expressive of the 

 visible universe. The sentence pictures this universe to our senses, 



