The Origin of Force. 81 



The one of these truths is as scientifically true as the other. 

 The existence of God is as demonstrably true as the existence of a 

 primordial universe of ether. They rest for their truth on human 

 consciousness. They are seen to be true by the psychical sight. 

 Looking back with clear mental vision to " the beginning," Science 

 has seen a universe filled with motionless ethereal fluid or jelly ; and 

 a Being more ethereal than ether, everywhere present, the eternal 

 Spirit we call God. Xo man has seen God at any time. He cannot 

 be localized or handled. He is termed Elohim (plural) so as to 

 include iti one comprehensive, all-embracing term, all the manifesta- 

 tions or attributes of Divinity variously incarnated or personified by 

 the ancients. 



Belief in the existence of God does not exclude belif'f in the most 

 radical processes of creation, as boldly advanced by the most pro- 

 gressive scientific investigators and philosophers of the day. Creation 

 by a gradual process, as described by science and really confirmed 

 by Genesis, is a far grander conception of God than the crude notion 

 that He spake the earth into existence in six successive days ; or the 

 degrading notion that after He had created man in His image. He 

 rendered it impossible for this creature to ascertain the processes of 

 creation. Why did He not make the universe in one day, or in a 

 single second of time, if a mere impressive display of the power of 

 His fiat was the only purpose? Why has He permitted man to gaze 

 with mystified awe on the universe, even to the analysis of all 

 its parts, if He intended to keep him in ignorance of the origin of 

 matter and mind ? This was not His purpose. To build the earth 

 by successive stages of regular growth, and to people it with a race 

 able to extract from it the secret of its origin, and to maintain steady 

 progress in all knowledge is a far more Godlike way of working 

 marvelous wonders, and winning the admiration and affection of His 

 creatures, than a display of supernatural and unintelligible power to 

 ignorant men and women. 



No naturalist has ever been able to detect the organizing diff"eren- 

 tiating principle of the violet, or of the oak, of the horse or of man. 

 That there is a subtle agency governing the aggregation of molecules 

 in the one diff'ering from the agency which operates in the other no 

 one doubts ; nor would we doubt any the more readily if some 

 skeptical chemist should tell us that, because he cannot find it, there- 

 fore it does not exist. Nor would we believe in its existence any 

 the more implicitly, if some one should affirm that each of these 



Trnns. x,\ W 



